The Power of Lightning
by kaminari2019
Summary: Dissidia tournament has been started and all girls' team of Lightning, Tifa and Aerith have been sent to retrieve Odin from Alexandria Castle, the arena in FF IX where Princess Garnet resides. They need to navigate through the city, fight with Odin and also Spiritus' team led by Sephiroth as their opponents. Pairing: [Lightning, Hope], [Cloud, Tifa, Aerith], [Zidane, Garnet]
1. Chapter 1 - Introduction to Dissidia

**Hi everyone,**

**This is my first fanfiction story, for the sake of hobby. These 2 months, I have a bit of spare time to watch cutscenes of FF XIII and FF XV, and it sparked my interest back to my childhood game. I only played FF VII, FF IX, FF XII so please let me know if any mistake found on the story. I am currently 32-years old and currently studying while working, so I may not write very often other than I have done here.**

**This is alternate universe whereby there is a central authority over Final Fantasy multiverses, Square Enix, which organized Dissidia fighting tournament for altering universe fate, cultural exchange, and monetary rewards. Square Enix delegated the administration of tournament to some known characters in FF universe. The heroes are assumed to be called to tournament after final game in their own universe. So, Lightning is called after she was reborn in New World after Lightning Returns. Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are called one year after FF VII - Advent Children. After tournament, heroes return to their own universes whereas villains are reincarnated in alternate universes.**

**So far, this is how the outline of the story:**

**Chapter 1 - Quick introduction to Dissidia tournament and background story about Lightning (Done)**  
**Chapter 2 - Conversation between Lightning, Tifa and Aerith upon arrival in Alexandria** **(Done)**  
**Chapter 3 - Lightning, Tifa and Aerith navigate Alexandria through rooftop** **(Done)**  
**Chapter 4 - Lightning buys tickets for herself, Tifa and Aerith to Alexandria Castle (Done)**  
**Chapter 5 - Tifa and Aerith explained how they are accused of robbery and assault** **(Done)**  
**Chapter 6 - Background story about Princess Garnet as Dissidia committee** **(Done)**  
**Chapter 7 - Battle between Lightning's and Sephiroth's group with Odin** **(In Progress)  
Chapter 8 - Lightning, Tifa and Aerith navigated through backdoor of Alexandria Castle (Done)  
****Chapter 9 - Gunshot battle between Lightning and Seifer**** (In Progress)**  
**Chapter 10 - Hand-to-hand combat between Lightning and Cid Raines** **(Done)**  
**Chapter 11 - Lightning is critically wounded and saved by Etro (Done)  
****Chapter 12 - Lightning fought and prevailed against Sephiroth (Done) - Violent scene**

**Epilogue I - Lightning shared with Hope about her struggle for finding meaning in new world (Done) - Lemon  
Epilogue II - Cloud dated both Tifa and Aerith in Gold Saucer and confirmed their relations (Done)  
Epilogue III - Garnet resigned as queen of Alexandria and married with Zidane in new Prima Vista (In Progress)**

**I am open to input from experienced people to give me some advise! Please drop me a message.  
**

**Additional Notes:  
****\- Please start to drop review as the story almost reaches completion...I am thinking of follow-up for this story if the feedback is positive.  
\- I will still publish new chapters even if they are not fully written. I think it is better to provide regular update instead of waiting for 5000-words chapter to be fully written  
**

* * *

Dissidia tournament has been started and the fighters across multiple universes, both heroes and villains gathered, teamed up and battle for control over timegate to alter the fate of universe. The eleventh round has been started and all-girls team of Lightning, Tifa and Aerith are currently being assigned to retrieve Odin summon stone from Alexandria Castle, the key scene from FF IX where princess Garnet live. In the beginning, Cloud actually wanted to lead the team because he feels closer to Tifa and Aerith but Lightning offered to switch. She thought the familiarity with her favorite summon will enable her easier battle during their effort to capture it. Trusting on her capability as fellow soldier, Cloud eventually permitted Lightning to lead Tifa and Aerith. Before they left to Alexandria, Cloud warned Lightning that Spiritus' warriors led by Sephiroth may try to attack them due to his obsession with Cloud's girlfriends.

Out of all villains encountered as Spiritus' warrior, Lightning harbors the most intense hatred to Sephiroth because of his abnormal preference to target female fighters. He thinks they are generally weaker and takes his enjoyment to torture them. Furthermore, he almost killed both Tifa and Aerith in during their battle encountered in Midgar in FF VII universe.

However, Lightning Farron is not on the same level as Tifa or Aerith as she is the strongest female fighter on the entire Final Fantasy series. Lightning has defeated great god Bhunivelze at her universe, something that even most of FF male protagonists never dream to do. Most of Lightning's peer female fighters are usually weaker than their male counterparts. Knowing this fact, she is not really interested on sparring with her female peers but only to men. Among all male protagonists, only Noctis and Cloud whose ability is on par with her and she is undefeated over all battles in ten arena so far. Because of her strong performance during sparring session, she earned strong respect from all male fighters. She become the only female fighter who is trusted to lead the team to capture summons (The other team leaders are Cloud, Squall, Zidane, Tidus, Vaan, and Noctis).

In her new world, Lightning is also dominant over her own younger husband, Hope. He gladly let her to be in control in their daily life, including making major financial decisions, initiative in dating and sex, and deciding social and leisure activites. Hope never complains because Lightning usually also considering his opinions before making any decision and she is a good female breadwinner (due to her past family hardship). She is dedicated to her career and advanced quickly through the military rank, earning enough to pay the bill for both of them, plus giving some money gift to Hope's parents as token of appreciation. She is also willing to use most of her saving to pay for their current two-rooms apartment. Hope does not have much money at such young age of 22 years old. He does some work as research assistant but academy does not pay very well compared to Guardian Corps. Plus, he is 7 years younger than Lightning and naturally his career will be always behind his 29-years old wife.

For appreciation, Hope tried to please his alpha wife as a good beta husband. That includes cooking good food, handling shopping for daily necessities, washing and ironing her uniform, doing regular maintenance of her gunblade, massage her when she returns from work, always praising her beauty and power in front of his parents (causing her to blush every times but she always feel good about it), giving thanks regularly for all her financial support, and expressing his wish that Lightning will continue to be dominant forever, even after they have children.

Despite their gender role reversal, Lightning loved him. She liked Hope because he is good talker who like to discuss intellectual issues and make their conversation always interesting. He has involved more intensively with community activities in local church, school, and science clubs. Hence, they often received home visits and it is refreshing for her to be connected to local neighbors after her long working hour. Plus he is cute, gentle, friendly, romantic, and principled. She also does not mind to be female breadwinner. She got used to it as she already earned her first paycheck since she was 15-years old, working in Guardian Corps to take care of Serah.

However, due to dislike of publicity of their gender role reversal (being accused and teased of henpacking her husband by Hope's relatives, her colleagues, Snow and Serah), she tried to keep low profile, acting as gently and feminine as possible like normal couple publicly. She will only show her power when it is needed at battlefield and bedroom, unlike herself in early days with more fiery temper.

Lightning Farron's only weakness is fear of loneliness. The continuous responsibility to engage in battle and taking care of her younger sister costs her social personality and making her disliked by most people, men and women. Most men admired her for beauty and power in battlefield from afar. They respected her professionally but not many of them dare to make friend with her because of her fiery temper. Most women dislike her because although she is a girl but she is not fluent in many girls' topic, such as latest fashion, entertainment, and gossips about dating and romance. Additionally, many are jealous because her beauty caused men to flirt on her every time she passes by. Although she tried to dress modestly, her tall stature and athletic build (her height is 5'8'' (172cm) and weight is 70 kg) and her rare natural rose-colored hair cannot be hidden. The only close friends she has is her younger sister Serah, and her current husband Hope. She feels sad and lonely about that but figured out that as long as both of them love her, that's all that really matters.


	2. Chapter 2 - Welcome to Alexandria

Lightning, Tifa and Aerith arrived at outskirt of Alexandria city. The reddish sky indicated that it is an evening. The buildings in the city reflect medieval architecture like middle-age Europe with clay roof. This is unlike the urban metropolis Midgar from which Tifa and Aerith are originated, or futuristic Bodhum where Lightning come from. They arrived at the backyard of a wooden home. Behind them, is a canal and at the distance, the huge castle surrounded by water dominated the view.

"It is looked like our destination." said Tifa, "By the way, Light, does Princess Garnet know about our arrival?"

Lightning shaked her head, "Zidane told me that she is aware about Dissidia tournament and in fact, she was also invited but she refused due to undeterministic schedule." she turned around facing Tifa and Aerith, "The princess cannot just leave her kingdom unattended. She has a very busy schedule, meeting with public officials every day. However, Zidane told her before leaving that Spiritus' fighters will definitely tried to capture Odin Summon Stone from the throne room in the eleventh round of tournament. So, she is aware about the arrival of heroes and villains but not aware of who will be chosen. To ensure fairness, Dissidia tournament committee does not allow fighters to compete in same universe where they are originated from. This means Zidane could not participate and the Princess knew about it..."

"Honestly, I think it's silly rule..." Tifa commented.

Lightning shook her head, "If you think about it, the fighters from the same universe have natural advantage of navigating the arena, since they stayed there. Hence, they are able to reach Summons Stone faster and easily won the games, which made the entire tournament pointless..."

"So, how do we suppose to go to that castle?" asked Aerith, "Did Zidane brief you about the Alexandria city, Light?"

Lightning nodded, "Yes, he gave me some outline of the city but it is the Alexandria's outline before it was destroyed by the Bahamut. There may be a lot of differences depending on the Princess if she want to rebuild the city as close as original one. He did not explore new Alexandria very much before this tournament started. So, it's looked like even the native does not have complete picture of the city..."

"If I remember correctly," Aerith continued, "The organizing committee will ensure there will be no civilian near the battle arena, is that right? It means we cannot ask people for direction". This is the first time Aerith are chosen to participate in the battle round and hence a lot of subtlety of tournament rules that they still do not remember.

"Yes, you cannot." Lightning replied, "Princess Garnet is just organizing commitee and head referee. Her task is limited only to supervise the battle to make sure there are no foul play involved and activate Summon Stone the moment either group arrived at the destination. She will record down the battle statistics and report back to Dissidia Board of Director" Lightning looked at Aerith, "Do you come for briefing yesterday?"

"No, unfortunately..." Aerith replied, "I was on the garden chatting with Cloud. The committee said the meeting is optional for non team-leader so I figured out I want to spend my time with him. He has been absent for few weeks because of this tournament. Luckily, he is not team leader in this round because of exchange with you..."

Lightning sighed because Aerith is out of her expectation. She does not expect Aerith will hold herself during battle for long as marksman class but expected that at least she can help with her strong Cure magic spell to support her and Tifa. She just hoped that secondary villains on another side will not be stronger than her. As of now, the score favor slightly on Materia's side as they won five out of ten battles, and Spiritus' side won four. One round was draw because the battle still did not end even after the time limit elapsed. Even when they lose, there are still another two battles in parallel universe - group of Tidus, Balthier and Rinoa and group of Noctis, Snow and Yuna. So, among those three groups, Lightning's group seems to be the weakest one, excluding her.

As of Tifa, she showed more tactfulness and preparation for this round of tournament. Thinking that FF IX universe is less advanced universe compared to other arena, she brought a backpack with miscellaneous tools for exploration in wilderness such as compass, binocular, matches, rope and anchor, climbing axes, torchlight, handgun, dynamite, screwdriver, lock picking tools, extra potions and ethers. Quite impressive tool set for just three hours tournament...Tifa is decent fighter although she is still one level below Lightning but she managed to defeat several second level villains during previous rounds with Cloud and Squall as her leader. She is excited to participate in this battle round under Lightning as she is female team leader with very similar background with Cloud and Squall (Three of them are soldiers).

"Let's go and explore to find the way to the castle." Lightning commanded, "Keep watch on anything that move". They walked passed the broken fence to Alexandria's main street.


	3. Chapter 3 - Cheating the Rule

Alexandria city appeared like ghost town where the only footsteps heard are Lightning, Tifa and Aerith. There are no lights in almost every residential building along the main road. The personal bodyguards of Princess Garnet (Steiner and Beatrix) have ordered evacuation of all civilians in Alexandria to nearby villages to prevent casualty from battle between summons and fighters from both sides the day before eleventh round of Dissidia. Based on tournament rule, each destruction of single property by either parties' summons and fighters outside battle arena will be penalized by 10 minutes reduction of time limit in next round (out of 3 hours). This is done to prevent foul play of destroying all buildings by magic and going straight to the destination instead of navigating intelligibly through the city.

Occasional soldiers patrolled around the main street by military carriages, watching carefully at three ladies as they are from another planet. They were obviously looked annoyed as their daily life were interrupted by this tournament and they had additional tasks to make sure that they do not screw Alexandria.

Lighting's group felt lost after finding dead-ends for third time in five minutes. They were trying to find ways towards city square where the ticket counter for theatre ship to Alexandria Castle were located. According to Zidane, by buying that ticket, they can go directly to the castle by boarding theatre ship which arrived every 5 mins beside mini theatre. Zidane's group, Tantalus Theatre Troupe, used to stay in that mini theatre. Running across the bridge to the castle will take around 30 mins instead of just 5 mins by ship. However, the counter closed at around 6:00pm. Although they arrived at 5:30pm, now the clock already showed 5:54pm and they were running out of time. If they missed the ship, it is a high chance that the Spiritus' team will arrive at the castle first.

"The map is obviously outdated." Lightning complained, "The street become more complicated than what is shown here"

"We cannot lose like this...it's very embarrassing" Tifa followed as she wiped out the sweat from back of her neck, have been running non-stop for past 20 mins following direction to city square.

"At this rate, we probably will not make it" Aerith commented, observing the watch on her wrist and then gazing sky above them, twin moons of blue and red color appeared on the reddish sky.

Lightning put her finger on her chin, trying to think something to resolve the situation. After several seconds, she come out with the idea. "Unless..." she faced confused Tifa, and then Aerith, then glanced at three-storey mansions in front of them, obviously the tallest residential building in the surrounding area, "We break some rules..." she smiled wickedly and after that unleashing her Ultima Blade and stepped forward to slash it twice towards the mansion's entrance. The wooden doors were broken into four pieces and wide opened.

The act did not went unnoticed. Few metres behind them on the road, a Alexandria soldier on patrol immediately noticed what Lightning has done and blew loud whistle. "10 minutes penalty for Materia's side!" he announced. Lightning grumbled and sent a death glare at the soldier and he looked shocked. However, she did not want to waste time protesting and immediately commanded Tifa and Aerith to enter the mansions, following her.

They run to climb stairs to third storey and broke the window on the third floor to climb to the rooftop. From there, they can see a large five-storey steeple around 100 meters from them with the tall bell tower.

"It's looked like good place to see the view of the city. " Lightning said, waving her hands to instruct Tifa and Aerith, "Come on. Let's go there!". As she immediately jumped across the small alley to another rooftop. Tifa and Aerith quickly followed her.

Once they reached steeple, Lightning climbed ladder to the bell tower and glanced around the scenery from the top. Tifa and Aerith were waiting on the foot of bell tower.

"Tifa!" shouted Lightning, "Could you lend me your binoculars?"

She nodded, searching from her backpack for awhile and once she found it, immediately throwing it upward, "Here, Light!". Lightning quickly caught the binoculars and scanning scenery through it for awhile. Several seconds later, she stopped and looked at Tifa.

"I think I found it. City Square." she concluded, pointing to certain direction. "Now, it is 5:57pm. If we quickly jumped around, we should be able to reach it on time."

"But Light...it's looked very far.." Aerith protested while wiping the sweat from her brow for jumping around rooftop, "Are you sure 3 mins is enough?"

Lightning sighed and looked at her and Tifa intently, "Maybe not for you.." she said, "I will go there and buy for three of us. Take your time and we will meet directly at the mini theatre. It is located just beside City Square.". Immediately, she jumped to other further rooftop and left Tifa and Aerith behind.

"Tifa...don't you think Lightning is too fast?" Aerith complained.

"Yeah...her stamina is very good as she is a soldier. " Tifa agreed, "I think we should try harder though...Otherwise, we will not get any points in this round..."

She clenched both of her fists in front of her chest and helped Aerith climbed down from the steeple.


	4. Chapter 4 - Business is Business

If you performed jumping from rooftop to rooftop in city like Midgar, Palumpolum or Bodhum, you will run out of space before far. But that is because those are big cities with many skyscrapers and the distance between buildings are not that near. This is different from Alexandria where the widest road may be only three to four lanes, and largest building in that city (other than its castle) is just five-storey steeple.

Hence, it should not be that long before Lightning reached the rooftop of the three-story house shop at the corner of city square. She panted hard and glanced at her watch and the time showed 5:59pm. One minute left and she looked around but there was no ladders or stairs to go to the ground from rooftop she was standing. She can see the ticket counter that Zidane mentioned located at the center of the square. The shopkeeper was packing up all inventories into the containers from the shelves inside that counter, looked about to leave.

It cannot be helped...Lightning thought. She must jump to the ground

She climbed up to the edge of the chimney, stabilize her position while facing downward. She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath, and raised both of her hands in vertical position. Three of Alexandria soldiers are patrolling near the bottom the house shop where Lightning is standing, glancing around the rooftop and then one of them noticed her. She reopened her eyes, ready her position.

I can do this...She encouraged herself..I AM LIGHTNING!

And then, she jumped forward and the Alexandria soldiers were bewildered.

She took the momentum to bring her head downward and her feet were rotated to face sky, while doing so she adopted crouching stance so her feet was rotated again from the top to the bottom while gravity brought her downward. So, she was performing somersault from that chimney. She landed with her feet successfully on the ground in front of those three Alexandria soldiers, causing shock in their eyes. It was as if they just witnessed a goddess descended from heaven above them. She then slowly stood up, stretching one of her knees backward to relieve the tension from impact, and walked forward. The soldiers slowly tilted their heads upward, suddenly noticed that Lightning is taller one head above them. Realizing that the soldiers were still captivated by her action, she gazed on them, gave cocky smile and she walked passing them.

"Poor men.." she teased them, patting head of one soldier, "You are so weak against beautiful women."

The soldiers were speechless and their body still would not move due to their amazement.

Lightning quickly run to the ticket counter at the center of the square and just when the shopkeeper about to close the front door, Lightning used her left hand to prevent the door for being closed. The middle-aged men looked shocked when seeing rose-colored hair soldier girl.

"Ticket for three, please!" Lightning said, "To Alexandria Castle."

"Ah!" the shopkeeper replied, pointing to Lightning's face, "You must be that Savior lady who become Louis Vitton model after the game finished in the new world! I saw your advertisement in the magazine that are circulated these few weeks as part of Dissidia tournament promotion." he grinned, "Welcome to Alexandria! I hope you enjoy the tournament!"

Lightning rolled her eyes, "Well, I cannot say I enjoy it…we got lost and it almost ruined our chance to win the tournament, if I late by couple of seconds…"

"No worries. You made it, right? Here are your tickets. It costs 10,000 gils for one ticket."

"WHAT?" Lightning eyes widen in surprise, "10,000 gils for a ticket with 5 minutes journey? It costs me only 10 gils to take a train traveling from…"

"I understand your point, lady…" the shopkeeper replied, "But you need to understand that this Dissidia tournament is really costly for us, average Alexandria citizens. The military need to organize mass migration of 1 million citizens to nearby villages within 2 weeks, together with all their cattles, and properties. Also, Princess Garnet taxed all citizens with 50% tax income for the past 3 months to construct that freaking huge battle arena on the lake in front of the castle. And only to be destroyed after 12 rounds of tournament….And for your reference, our normal tax rate is only 10%. If I give you normal ticket price, I will be bankrupt by the end of tournament."

"So, business is business, huh?" Lightning asked, "None of my reputation will exempt me to pay for your bills?"

The shopkeeper sighed, "Unfortunately, it is…"

Lightning deeply thought for a while what items should she sold to fund the ticket price. She do not want to sell any of huge potions as it will be useful for later battle with Odin or Spiritus' warriors. Definitely, she would not want to sell her Etro's Knight armour, sword or shield. Neither is her Ultima Blade or shield or her original Blazefire Saber. After thinking few seconds, she materialized her second strongest blade, Lionheart, and put it on the shopkeeper's table. He examined the blade carefully, looking around all angles.

"I obtained this by 28,000 gils." Lightning said, "I supposed that you can give me some discounts. We do not want to sell any potions. We may need them."

The shopkeeper nodded, "It is a reasonable deal." then, he slowly put the Lionheart inside a container below the desk and close its cover. "I also wish for your success. I am actually your fans, Savior!" he grinned, "My wife did not like that though…".

Lightning sighed and rolled her eyes. She does not know that she is also so popular in other universes. Not sure it is a good or bad thing.

"Here are your tickets." The shopkeepers bow down and passed three tickets to Lightning, "Enjoy your ride!"


	5. Chapter 5 - Inside Prima Vista

The time showed 6:07pm and Lightning is waiting anxiously at the corner of the large grass field behind mini theatre near city square of Alexandria. She estimated if Tifa and Aerith run on the same, realistic pace as what they did before jumping to rooftop, they should be here by 6:02pm but somehow they have not arrived yet until now. There were no road blockage or any visible large crowd from what she saw on the top of the bell tower of steeple. The large theatre ship of Prima Vista, the same model that was used by Zidane and his group to perform show in front of Princess Garnet just landed there two minutes ago. The ship will be departed at 6:10pm, according to the captain.

"Could you extend the departure time if two of my friends not arriving on time?" asked Lightning

"I am afraid cannot ma'am. We are not supposed to show any partiality to any sides of Dissidia fighters. This is the order of Knight Steiner and Beatrix. If it was found out, I will be penalized heavily…" replied the ship captain.

Lightning picked up the local transmitter from her pocket, tried to dial to both Tifa's and Aerith's frequency. After a while, Tifa picked up. Strangely, Lightning can hear both her sound and Aerith's but it seems that they are talking to some groups of people around them and never respond to her.

"Tifa? Aerith?" prompted Lightning, "Who are those people with you? The ship will be departed soon in three minutes…"

"Uh, Light…we just have some problems with Alexandria soldiers here…that's why we are late" replied Tifa, her sound seemed worried, "But it's ok…we are outside the mini theatre already. I will tell you the story inside the ship later". Lightning glanced through the window from outside to the mini theatre living room and saw Tifa and Aerith just entered into the room. Lightning sighed as her mind in peace now, seeing both of them are OK. Not long after that, three of them climbed the stairs and boarded into Prima Vista

"Robbery and assault?" Lightning eyes were widening in surprise, "They suspected both of you to assault that treasure carriage and beaten three soldiers, left them almost died?"

Tifa nodded and sighed, "They spotted us near the crime scene. According to them, we as Dissidia fighters have a good motivation to do that. To pay for the expensive ticket price of Prima Vista, the obvious way to cheat the rule is to rob that carriage". Tifa walked across room and continued, "But I said to them, we have sufficient items to sell to pay for the ticket price although admittedly it will give us disadvantages during our final battle. I need to sell both my black and white materia."

"Yeah." Lightning chuckled, "I need to sell my Lionheart sword for 28,000 gils"

Aerith surprised, "I thought that is your second strongest sword, Light? Your Ultima Blade has not gone through any maintenance for ten consecutive rounds. Judging from its condition, I don't know if it still can be used in final round…"

Lightning sighed, "That is my thing to worry about. If it's true then I will be using my default Blazefire Saber for the final round."

"But…" Aerith tried to protest.

"Nevermind", Lightning interjected, "Please continue, Tifa."

"So I defended both of us." Tifa continued, "I mentioned to them that first, the wounds from the fallen soldiers did not look like it's inflicted by our weapons. I am fighting with my bare hands and they checked Aerith's spear and there is no trace of blood from it. In contrast, the wounds were looked like inflicted by sword…and some gunshots. They did ask about you, Light. They knew that you have a gunblade…"

Lightning eyes focused more intently on Tifa's upon that statement, "Then, what did you say to them?"

Tifa shrugged, "I said that it is impossible for you to do that since you are with us all times before you left us from that steeple. But then, they disbelieved us that you really went to buy the tickets and hence we went to city square together to interrogate that old shopkeeper. Only after that, they released us."

"So, they temporarily concluded that it was done by Spiritus' fighters." Aerith explained, "But they have no evidence. I casted Cura spell to heal those fallen soldiers. But after they awaken, they do not remember who hacked them down…it seems that their memory related to incident were erased somehow…If there are no evidence, we cannot report this to Dissidia committee to call for disciplinary action."

"So, it seems that not only us that tried to cheat the rule, huh?" Lightning chuckled. "So, did shopkeeper can testify who buy the ticket before us? He should be able to describe the appearance of Spiritus' fighters."

Tifa shaked her head, "There are three people approaching him to buy ticket to Alexandria Castle around 10 minutes before you, but they were wearing black hoods with the mask. So he does not know their identity. As there is no official policy about the fighter costume in Dissidia tournament, anonymity is acceptable by principle…"

Lightning crossed her arms into her chest, her face become more serious, "So, it means they lead us."

There is a silence for a while. "Yes, unfortunately…"


	6. Chapter 6 - The Princess' Nightmare

Commitment to participate as organizing committee for Dissidia tournament has been very challenging task for young Princess Garnet. She does not have any formal education in public policy in such tender age of 18-years old. Her stepmother, Queen Brahne, used to enroll her in royal school but it was interrupted when she escaped the castle with Zidane. Being entrusted with such large engineering projects to construct battle arena for duel between Summons and Dissidia fighters within just less than 3 months causing many sleepless nights for the Princess. That is still not including handling endless public demonstration against plan to relocate citizens to nearby villages, and discussion through 100-pages manual of Dissidia tournament rules with her personal bodyguards, military battalion leaders and other organizing committee in parallel universes.

It got worse because she has to accept doing this without her lover, Zidane for more than 3 weeks. Although it is her desire to be together with him, she cannot really let her kingdom without leader for such long period of time. Steiner and Beatrix are no substitute to negotiate trade deals with other kingdoms or signing new laws into effect as they do not have such authority. She trusted that Zidane can help Materia's team to their glory by restoring balance of universe. It is also coupled by his promise of returning to Alexandria with prize money given by Dissidia committee for every battle won as a team leader. Knowing Zidane's motivation and capability, she is convinced that Dissidia tournament will bring good reputation and financial profit for Alexandria and tried to convince same thing to her citizens.

During Summons battle between two opposites group, the group that first reached the throne room will be given chance to start the battle. The Princess will use her summon power to transform the Summon Stone into real summon, placed on the middle of the battle arena. The group members will place themselves on three teleport platforms at the corner of throne room and instantly transported to corner of battle arena to start the fight.

Each summon has a specific, limited amount of HP. The rule is that each of two groups will take turn to fight summon every five minutes. Every attacks and magical damages that are inflicted to the summons by each group will be accumulated. The group that first inflicted more than 50% damage to Summons' total HP defeated the Summon, will be given Summon Stone and be allowed to head towards two portals. They are located around 15-minutes running distance from throne room. If the team has carried Summon Stone through the portal, they are considered as winner. The losing group will need to wait for specified period of time depending on the leftover HP of the Summons. If the leftover is 1000 out of 60000, the group need to wait for 1000 seconds before they were allowed to exit the arena by teleport platform.

Just the morning around 5:00am on the day of eleventh round, Princess come personally with her bodyguards to new battle arena built on the lake in front of castle. The arena has circular shape with diameter of 100 meters. Princess need to do last round check of magical barrier erected surrounding arena. She tried to cast some strong magic onto the barriers at every angles and see if they would not break under the stress.

After that, on 01:00pm, she met with twelve military leaders under Steiner and Beatrix to brief them about how and what to record battle statistics between Summons and Dissidia fighters. She briefed them what should and should not be constituted combo and bonus attacks and how many points will be accumulated for those attacks. This statistics will be used to rank fighters on each side to decide coveted Best Fighter Awards for Dissidia tournament at the end of the game.

In the evening at 04:00pm, the Princess need to check the functionality of Crystal Orbs alongside the route from battle arenas to two exit portals, one at the port and another one at the courtyard. The Crystal Orb is equivalent to CCTV camera to make sure that the participants will not use any magic inside Alexandria Castle to navigate towards portal. The use of magic is only allowed during fight between Summons and fighters in battle arena. Any participant caught to violate this rule will be disqualified from next round and their score in fighter table will be reduced by three.

After 05:30pm, she returned to her room and lying down on her queen bed. Finally, she got a real rest after 12 hours non-stop committee work without even eating. She held her hands on the summon pendant on her chest, adopting prayer position and looking through the ceiling and then empty bed space beside her where Zidane always sleep beside her.

"Zidane…." she thought, "I missed you so much…God, please keep him safe..."

Now, she just need to wait for Dissidia fighters from both sides to come. Based on the briefing with other committee members yesterday, this will be the last round Alexandria will be chosen as battleground. Thankfully, this is the last time she need to do the work.

Sound of knocking doors woke her up just as she is about to dozed off.

"Come in!" Princess Garnet said. The door opened and Beatrix appeared there

"Your Highness, I think you better have a dinner first before the tournament started…" her voice is hesitant, showed Princess some concerns.

Princess Garnet looked at her, smiling. "Thanks, Beatrix. But I will rather have some sleeps. Could you bring me the food here though?"

Beatrix nodded and closed the door behind her.


	7. Chapter 7 - The Battle of Odin

Lightning, Tifa and Aerith finally arrived at the wide balcony of Alexandria Castle and immediately jumped at the same time when the Prima Vista just reached the edge. Several of Alexandria soldiers under Beatrix and Pluto Knights under Steiner are standing on the corner of the balcony, carefully watching the movement of three arriving ladies. Other than that, the balcony is empty and no sign of Sephiroth and his team. The balcony where they arrived is surrounded by three tall brick towers. On the top of two towers, several Crystal Orbs are hovering around and they projected hologram and on it, there is a scene of battle.

Odin, a giant horse with horned knight is fighting three swordsmen surrounding it. The white-haired guy with a black coat holding long samurai sword is obviously Sephiroth and Lightning narrowed her eyes to focus on the tall man with black hair, wearing white military uniform with blue cloak assisting Sephiroth on his left side, wielding gunblade similar to Lightning.

"Cid Raines!" Lightning blurted in surprise, "How can he be on Spiritus' side?"

Aerith sensed a deep anxiety within Lightning and grabbed her shoulder from behind, "You knew him?"

Lightning bowed down her head and nodded, "He is my fellow comrade…from Guardian Corps, the military faction that guarded our homeland. He was made as pawn of Fal'cie, the mechanical god who ruled my homeland….but he desired for our freedom…I was once forced to fight with him…"

"So both of you are from same universe!" Tifa concluded and sighed, "Looked like this battle will be more personal than previous rounds…"

"I knew how it feels, Light…" Aerith hugged Lightning from behind, "Once, Jenova also controlled Cloud to make him kill me…."

Lightning turned her head to watch Aerith's compassionate green eyes and smiled, "Thanks for your encouragement, Aerith…". After that, Tifa focused her sight on blonde man, with the scar between his eyes, and wielding gunblade, on the right side of Sephiroth.

"That is Seifer Almasy", said Tifa, "I heard that he is Squall's archenemy from his universe. They were from same orphanage and went to same academy. Oh, mine…we have all very good three swordsmen there…It will be tough…"

"Hey, Tifa, why worry?" Aerith walked and slapped her shoulder from beside her, grinned widely, "They may be good swordsmen but we have our awesome Lightning….!". She said that while Lightning changed her schemata to Champions of Etro.

Tifa sighed, "But Lightning need to fight Sephiroth….they are almost equal strength. But honestly, I do not think I can handle even Seifer – and he is already the weakest one….we fought once when Squall was my team leader…I was beaten thoroughly…even though Squall tried to help me…"

"Don't worry, Tifa….", Aerith calmly spoke and suddenly the radiant green light burst out from under her as she raised her staff towards the sky. It also caught Lightning by surprise, "Bless them with your love and grace!", shouted Aerith and folded both of her hands in prayer. Suddenly, Lightning and Tifa felt their entire body are constantly rejuvenated. Aerith has casted Shield, Regen and Haste on all of them.

"As long as you are constantly recovering…..every time they hit you, you will always recover instantly…", Aerith blinked her right eye while snapping her finger playfully. Lightning is impressed with the rate of recovery for Aerith's magic towards her body, "You are more powerful than your appearance, Aerith…", Lightning grinned, "Anyway, let's go! Prepare for the battle!". Lightning raised her gunblade, pointing to the stairs in front of them with teleport platform, heading to the battle arena on the lake below.

"Team Lightning, be ready!" shouted one soldier on the top of the stairs, "Ten seconds before your turn! Nine, eight …". Three of them run hastily to reach another end and climb the stairs. By the time they reached, the teleport platform has been activated and they were transported instantly.


	8. Chapter 8 - Climbing The Castle

As Sephiroth's team has captured Odin's Summons Stone after final blow, they were instantly teleported back to throne room. Lightning, Tifa and Aerith is anxiously waiting announcement from Princess Garnet on how long they should wait.

"Lightning's team," Princess Garnet announced through load speaker, "You need to wait thirty seconds before you are transported back to throne room."

Lightning sighed, glad that it was not too bad. She should actually finish Odin before Sephiroth's team but somehow her Overture gunblade stopped functioning at critical time. Lightning and Tifa are about to open potion from their pockets and drink them.

"Everyone, wait!", Aerith interrupted, "I will cast Curaga spell to all of you and just keep your potions for future battle"

She pointed her spear to Tifa and instantly radiated blue light from the spear reached her body. Tifa closed her eyes and felt that her stamina and strength recovered. Aerith did the same thing with Lightning. Then, Aerith walked towards Tifa and grabbed both her left and right arms.

"I will cast Shield to your arms so you can block safely sword attacks by our enemies.", Aerith closed her eyes and transferred energy from her palms to Tifa's arms and a layer of bright light enveloped Tifa's arms, "But this spell only lasted for ten minutes. After that, you are on your own"

"Lightning!" Aerith spoke, "Please materialize your Ultima Blade!"

Lightning materialized her blade and throw it to Aerith. Aerith caught it and started to touch the blade while concentrating, closing her eyes. Not long before the glowing green light appeared on her palms and the light started to permeate over Lightning's entire Ultima Blade.

After a while, she reopened her eyes and threw back the blade to Lightning.

"I have applied Regen magic to it.", explained Aerith, "It is a bit slow, but it will be fully recharged and usable after around 15 minutes. I need to do this since we cannot use magic after leaving this arena. I can only cast once based on my current condition. After this, I basically will be useless..."

She bowed her head down in sadness. Lightning quickly approached her and hold both of her shoulders while seeing her eyes intently.

"Please do not said that, " Lightning pleaded, "None of us are useless."

"Hey, Princess!", Tifa shouted, "We are still here and it is already more than 30 seconds!"

Lightning and Aerith are both suprised and so do Princess Garnet at the balcony. She asked Steiner, Beatrix and one of the battallion leader to check teleport platform at the corner of the throne room. After awhile, she returned to the balcony and face Lightning.

"The battery in those platforms are completely drained," she said, "We need to wait until my assistant brought the back-up from the warehouse."

"WHAT?" Lightning surprised, "You cannot be serious! We cannot just wait here while they already escaped with the Summons Stone! Why aren't those platforms checked before tournament?"

Princess Garnet sighed, "I am absolutely sure I checked myself this afternoon that it was still fully recharged at that time...". Realizing the possible cause based on the timing, Lightning angrily stabbed her Ultima Blade to the floor.

"Another trick from Spiritus' fighters", she growled.

"Princess, please stop this game now!" pleaded Tifa, "This is unfair! We cannot do anything!"

"I understand, Tifa..." replied Princess, "But the rule of the tournament said match should not be halted for any technical difficulty unless it's related to exit portal...This is the first time this kind of thing happened..."

"However," Princess continued, "You can use back exit. Following the path will bring you to the castle's back door. It will require some climbings though, but it is much faster rather than waiting there...". She then gave instruction to some soldiers near battle arena, they opened magical barrier at the ends of the arena, and materialized stone platforms leading to the shore.

"Thanks for your help, Princess!" shouted Tifa, smiling to her at distance.

Princess Garnet nodded, "I really wish you will beat them. Good luck, Lightning!"

* * *

Lightning, Tifa and Aerith continued to run following the zig-zag path upward to the back of Alexandria Castle. According to the given map of Alexandria Castle, Sephiroth's team need to pass through a warehouse at the back of the castle before they head to the sea port, where one of the exit portal is located. Another exit portal is a bit further as it required teams go to basement, passing underground dungeon which heads to the courtyard. Convinced that they will aim for shorter route to quickly finish the race, Lightning's team decided to head to warehouse.

After following path upward, eventually they reached large castle gate. It is an iron bar gate with around five to six meters tall and it is closed. On the left and right side of the gate are two Alexandria's knights.

"Greeting, fighters!" salute the soldier, "We have been briefed about what happened in the arena.", one of the soldier pointed to the top corners of the castle gate, which have hanging platforms on left and right. There are a wheel planted on the wall on each side.

"Usually, two people go from inside to that platform and turn those wheels at the same time to open this gate" explained one of the soldier, "But because this is still within tournament, we cannot help you to open the gate. You need to open yourself"

"How do we do that?" asked Tifa.

"Well, there's an old ladder over there. But we are not sure about its safety...it has bern thirty years since it is last renovated...", the soldier pointed to old ladder hanging on the wall, the top of those ladders are connected to left and right side of those hanging platforms.

"Worth trying, I guess..." Lightning said. She walked to the ladder on the right side of the gate, while Tifa took the left side of the gate. They looked to each others, nodded their heads and started to climb. But before even couples of seconds, a cracking sound was heard, and Lightning fell down because the ladder she climbed crumbled. She grumbled and punched the ground.

Tifa is a bit luckier, the ladder she climbed also crumbled but it is when she already reached the top. She immediately grabbed the edge of platform, and raised her body up. She hold her grip on the wheel, facing Aerith and Lightning below.

"Light!" Tifa shouted, "Can you find another way to jump to that platform?"

"Let me see...", Lightning glanced around the walls near that gate for a while. She noticed that there is another hanging platform around the same height, around ten meters at the right side of the platform with wheel.

"I can try to go that way," Lightning said, pointing to that platform.

"And how do you reach there?" asked Tifa, looked skeptical.

Lightning turned backward, and noticed there is land with sliding slope around five meters across from that platform. Between that platform and sliding slope is an abyss and at the bottom of it is the sea. To get to top of that sliding slope, there is a rocky hill behind her around 15 to 20 meters high. It seems climbable as it has many cracks on it.

"I need to do it the hard way" Lightning saw intently to Tifa, "I need to climb this rock, to get there. And then slide, to jump to that platform"

Tifa's eyes were widening in disbelief, "Are you sure you can do that?"

Lightning chuckled, "You insulted me, Tifa. Why do you think I am your team leader?". Lightning turned backward, walked slowly to the bottom of the rock hill, and changed her schemata to Guardian Corps costume. She examined the rock in front of her, it is relatively flat and there is a crack around three to four meters above her. The crack persists horizontally to the left and at the edge, there is an overhang. Above it is the peak of the rock, from where the sliding slope to the attached platform on castle wall is located.

"Lend me your climbing gears!", Lightning commanded.

"What tools do you want?", asked Tifa, putting her backpack down and started searching.

"A pair of climbing axes will be enough." replied Lightning.

"Here!", Tifa threw both of her climbing axes, tied with the rubber band to Lightning and she caught them.

Tifa sat at the platform floor and Aerith approached and lied down against castle wall, intently watching what Lightning will do. Lightning put climbing axes inside her uniform belt, closed her eyes for a second, take a deep breath and reopened eyes with intense focus. She quickly made a run against flat vertical rock in front of her. After two steps, she raised her right hand to grab the crack on the rock above her. After reached, Lightning raised her left hand and consolidated her footholds against small ledges on the rock near her feet. Slowly, she shifted her grabbing hands horizontally, climbed leftward.

After a while, she reached the end of the crack and checking overhang above it. She steadied her foothold and opened one of climbing axes from her belt. She swung the axe with her left hand against overhang slope and it was planted firmly there. After pulling to test the strength, she released her foothold on the ledge, making her only hanged on her climbing axe.

"WOW!", Aerith shouted in amusement from below, "That is...awesome, Light!"

"I am not finished yet...", replied Lightning, panting hard and trying to endure the muscle restrain from her left hand, "Do not be too happy".

She released another climbing axe, raising her body up, and stabbed the axes upward. Trying to convince herself she is fine and no need to look down, she repeated this process two to three times. Afterward, she was finally able to grab the edge above her, raising her elbows to pull herself up. She lied down to rest her body for awhile, facing a night sky with two beautiful blue and red moons.

"Do you watch and learn from Nathan Drake or Lara Croft before this Dissidia tournament?" asked Tifa while giggling.

"Not fans of them", answered Lightning, "But I thought that their techniques could be useful for this round, especially no advanced technology here."

After resting for awhile, she raised up and faced sliding slope which ends near the hanging platform. She stepped forward, using her front foot to start sliding. After two or three seconds, she reached edge of the slide, bending her knees and made leap forward. She landed successfully at the top of the platform. Now, Lightning and Tifa is only separated by ten metres distance.

"It is too long for you to jump, I think", Tifa said, waving her hand to empty space between herself and Lightning. She bent down and searching again from her backpack and she brings a rope from inside.

"Well, I think you can use this to swing from your place if we can get the anchor to that window over here!" Tifa pointed to the open window around one or two storeys above them between her and Lightning's platform. She threw the rope to get the anchor to the window edge three times but never successful. She sighed after last attempt.

"It's looked like I am not too good for this," she acknowledge sadly.

"Never mind..." Lightning interjected, "I can do this alone."

"What do you...", before Tifa can finish her words, Lightning quickly made run from her platform and performed wall run. One step, two steps, three steps. She landed to the platform with the wheel at the right side of castle gate. When she reached, she saw Tifa eyes are shocked in amusement. Lightning gave the signature of her cocky smile to Tifa and crossed her arms on her chest.

"Now, you knew why I am your team leader. ", Lightning said proudly.

Tifa smiled and nodded in reverence, "You are so good, Light! We are happy to have you as our team leader!". Her mind still thought about Lightning along their journey on how she are so quick, her stamina is excellent, she is good in battle and acrobatic maneuvering (sommersault, vertical and horizontal wall run, and rockclimbing). None of their previous male team leaders are able to display such wide arrays of skills. Noctis and Cloud may be slightly better fighter but Lightning surpassed them in her skill diversity. No wonder Spiritus' fighters feel a need to cheat her.

"Now, let's open the castle gate!"


	9. Chapter 10 - Brawl in the Dungeon

The cannon's ball hit directly to the ground beside Lightning and Cid and creating large hole on the ground. Immediately, the floors made of stone surrounding them started to crumble. Lightning and Cid fell down to the hole and landed at the slippery slope, filled with underground water. They slipped together and panic, trying to find something to grab on but there is nothing. The land is very slippery with no rocks or platforms. After a while, they saw an abyss in front of them with complete darkness below it. Embracing fate, Lightning closed her eyes and prepared for hard impact. Cid managed to stab his gunblade into the slope at the mouth of the abyss, tried to hang onto it. But his grip eventually loosen because of wet glove and both of them fell down at the same time to the abyss.

They both hit the ground and moaned in pain. Although the abyss height did not enough to cause both of them to die but they were hurt nonetheless. Cid landed down with his right elbow hit the torch on the floor with flaming fire and burning his white cloak, he immediately rolled down on the floor to extinguish it. Lightning's Guardian Corp white uniform was being torn on the back side by something like barbed wire hanged horizontally on the middle of the abyss, the scars and blood trace appeared on her back. Lightning saw the area around them and it's looked like underground tunnel and around them, there are several torch lights on the wall and prison cells with all of them empty. The abyss apparently brought them down to this dungeon's open ceiling. At one end of the tunnel, there are stairs heading upward with huge gates on the top of it, which apparently heading to courtyard. Near of every torch hanged on the dungeon walls are Crystal Orbs, all are fully functional.

"So…." Cid started to spoke, "Thanks to your bartender girlfriend, we are almost dead…"

"I do not mind both of us incapitated as long as you do not get Odin," replied Lightning coldly, while her right hand was still holding to her scars on the back.

"Now….," he continued, "Both of us lost our gunblades. Your Ultima Blade and Overture are also unusable…and now is post summon battle, no magic can be used."

"We have to do it in old fashion way, Cid…" Lightning smirked, "It has been a while since we do this…"

"Hand-to-hand combat," Cid nodded, closed his eyes and faintly smile, "Hitting lady is not something I am fond of, Sergeant. It is a pity I need to do this to you." He slowly took off his burnt white cloak and threw it behind to the floor and he drew something on his trouser pocket and lifted up.

He held a shining silver summon stone on his hand.

Lightning narrowed her eyes and watched the stone and looked intently to Cid's eyes.

"See, Sergeant Farron… " Cid continued, pocketing the Summon Stone back, and crossed his arms on his chest, "I knew that it is an unfortunate coincidence that we need to meet here as an opponent. We have worked quite closely in Guardian Corps and also the new world. Right now, as you know, Sephiroth is fighting with both of your team members and you already heard from other Dissidia fighters how he will treat them."

Lightning clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, trying to withhold her anger. But then, she thought carefully about what he said. Cloud has entrusted both Tifa and Aerith under her care and if something happened to them, he will be very disappointed with her.

"So, I suggest we make a bargain." Cid proposed, "You let me go to the portal with this Summon Stone behind that gate on the courtyard. When I reached there, I will tell Sephiroth to stop fighting them. It's a win-win solution. Materia's team still led by one game and it does not hurt you to do this."

"And what if I refused?" Lightning challenged.

"Well, we will stuck here forever until one of us down….even if you beat me, you need to do it fast enough before your team members defeated. I am sure you knew how strong Sephiroth is…" Cid smiled wickedly.

Lightning thought carefully about what he said. Can he be trusted about this? It is true that she does not lose much if he really let Cid goes away with that Summon Stone. But if that's the case, she will disappoint Materia and not sure if Materia will let her participate again for the next final round or even invited her for next Dissidia tournament. But on another hand, she cannot face Cloud if both Tifa and Aerith were hurt by Sephiroth even though she will get the Summon Stone and win the game.

Suddenly, she noticed something unusual. Her prism on the necklace does not radiate, unlike at the time after Odin was defeated in the battle arena. It _should_ radiate if it is near Summons Stone. She remembered that during her previous battle rounds against Leviathan in Insomnia and also Bahamut in Promised Meadow, her prism _always _reflected light when Summons Stone near her. Then, suddenly she was aware what happened.

She glared intensely at the Cid, "You lied to me!"

Cid looked surprised, his eyes are widening, "What do you mean by that?"

Not waiting for explanation, Lightning immediately spun her body backward clockwise and at the same time, raising and swinging her right foot so that her heel hit Cid's face. Unable to evade because of the fast speed, Cid's body thrown down to the floor upon Lightning kick hit his face, rolling to the prison wall.

Cid saw Lightning in shock while wiping the blood from the mouth.

"Nice trick, Cid….now I knew it's a fake summon stone." Lightning held her chin up in disgust. "I should know that Spiritus' fighters cannot be trusted after that robbery incident". Obviously, she referred to incident where Tifa and Aerith were accused to rob military carriage bringing large amount of gils.

"You said just now hitting lady is not something you are fond of," Lightning said slowly while ripping her torn Guardian Corps uniform and removing her Blazefire Saber sheath from her skirt. She dropped both of them to the floor and kick them behind. After removing her uniform, Cid slowly stood up and he can see Lightning's body with all its glory.

Lightning is wearing a tight black sport bra behind her uniform, symbolizing female power and independence. It showed her pierced navel, gloriously toned abs and both of her muscular shoulders. Her appearance is very similar to Tifa, except that she is taller, has more muscles, smaller breasts, and that sharp icy glare. Unlike most women, she is blessed by the body of warrior goddess which can compete against men in raw strength. And she feels honored and proud about it.

"That's because you assume you can hit me first, Cid", Lightning adopted boxing stance, ready to fight, pointing thumb to her chin, "I am Lightning, warrior goddess of Etro. No men will escape my hands!"

She immediately running forward, jumped and kicked in the air. Cid quickly rolled his body leftwards as Lightning's kick hit a torch on the wall and it immediately broke into two pieces. He is a bit shocked that a female soldier can have such strong raw strength. She turned her body to Cid, slowly walking to corner him.

"I will tear you into pieces!", Lightning growled, her eyes are focused with scary glare. Her rage is still flaming remembering Cid almost tricked her. She will quickly put him down to chase Sephiroth before he crushed both Tifa and Aerith.

Cid readied his stance, stepped forward, and started to hit series of jabs against Lightning. She parried each jabs calmly while watching his eyes. He then raised his knee to kick Lighrning's stomach, but she evaded to his right side, and swinging her elbow to hit his face. He shielded his face by his palm but the force hits him hard and caused pain. He ignored that, retaliated by elbowing her stomach back with another hand.

Lightning groaned in pain, but determined to force her body pushing forward. Cid is a bit of out of position, and stumbling backward and after few steps hit the prison wall. Lightning used her left arm to pin Cid's neck against the wall while her right hand twisted his left hand behind his back, staring at him.

"I will end this soon," Lightning threatened, "Without much pain, if you surrender now."

"Do not be so sure yet, Sergeant!" replied Cid. He instantly leaned down his head to smack her but her instinct is faster. She immediately released her pin and evaded leftward. The momentum caused Cid to fall down to the floor. Lightning quickly rode his back and circling her left arm to Cid's neck to strangle him. He tried to grab her wrist to release his neck from her strangle but her force is too strong for him. Her bicep is almost as big as him. Last time, they sparred during their time in Guardian Corps when Lightning is still 18-years old and Cid is still unable to defeat her. Now, hundred years later, her power has surpassed him.

"We have to do this in hard way then, General...", Lightning whispered from behind. Her grip is tightening.

Cid is not done yet. He quickly shook and turned his body rightward and causing Lightning lost her balance, rolling around with him. Then, she realized that she encountered intense pain on her back and cringed. Her grip is loosening because of the pain. She glanced and saw the same torch that burned Cid's cloak just now also touched her back. Cid immediately pulled her wrist down, rolled forward and both of them stood up. Lightning still held her back in pain while Cid is guarding his stance.

Thinking of taking advantage of Lightning's temporary pain, Cid moved forward and did round kick aiming Lightning's exposed back. But her reflect is on siege, she swiftly ducked and at the same time, using her left leg swiping to target his standing foot. It hit him and caused him fell down to the floor, with his head landed near her left thigh. Immediately, she realized the golden chance. She rolled her body facing his, raising another leg to circle his neck and put it sticking to her bending knee, squeezed him hard by scissors choke technique. She pinned him down and used her strong thigh muscles to squeeze him until he panted hard.

"The game is over, General...," Lightning proclaimed, "I will crush you now!".

She tightened her grip until the white alabaster skin on her thighs turned reddish, exposing her bulky muscles and veins. She concentrated and enjoyed on the feeling of adrenaline rush which is permeating through her body. The complete power over her enemy who was pinned helplessly between her powerful thighs created great satisfaction of victory for her. Cid's face also turned reddish and she can feel that his grip on her thigh and his body is slowly weakening.

"I am sorry, Lightning...", he apologized and losing his consciousness afterward. Upon hearing that, there is a bit of sympathy warming her kind heart.

Lightning caressed Cid's hair to show acceptance of his apology. She sighed and breathed hard, wiping out her sweat from her forehead and slowly stood up, having to struggle against a man who used to be her mentor in old world. She silently watched motionless Cid's body below her.

"Nice fight, General...," she spoke softly, "But you are still far from me..."

She clenched and raised her right fist on the air, flexing her bicep, while facing a Crystal Orbs in front of her, posing victoriously. Afterward, she turned to the gate on the end of the underground tunnel and slowly walking towards it.

Two downs, one to go.


	10. Chapter 11 - Resurrection of the Savior

After reaching the top of the stairs, Lightning changed her schemata to Equilibrium garb. She checked that her Ultima Blade has been fully recovered, thanks to Aerith's last minute Regen spell before they left battle arena. She opened the unlocked door, and saw the palace back courtyard with its garden. The courtyard garden was planted with various kinds of beautiful flowers. At the center of the courtyard, there is a large five-metre tall statue of Alexander. It is the iconic summon which is protector of Kingdom of Alexandria and also favourite summon of Princess Garnet. In front of the Alexander statue is the exit portal leaving FF IX universe. Lightning did not see any Alexandria knight nearby although there are many Crystal Orbs on every corner of courtyard.

Lightning thought deeply for a while as she remembered the scene before she fell into the underground dungeon. Tifa and Aerith were trying to fight with Sephiroth and prevented him to head towards portal at the port, which is on the opposite side of courtyard, behind the castle. Tifa threw a grenade and shot it with her handgun which hit the ceiling of the alley they were in. The ceiling collapsed in explosion to block the way between her and Sephiroth and temporarily halt his advance as she was overwhelmed by his power during battle. However, knowing that Tifa is very persistent and because of her personal grudge, Lightning predicted that they will still chase Sephiroth to the portal even with the possible cost of her life and Aerith will definitely tag along to support her.

However, Lightning was not sure she will be able to reach there on time to the portal at the port. Based on her memory during briefing with Zidane, it will take her around five minutes to travel at even her hastened speed from courtyard to the port. By the time she reached there, it is most likely too late for her. Sephiroth would have defeated Tifa and Aerith and escaped with Odin.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of door opening behind her. At the back gate of the castle, which is connected to the warehouse, opened. Two Alexandria knights with Steiner appeared from inside, holding the battery for teleport platform. Lightning immediately remembered that while she and her team arrived at Alexandria Castle, there are a lot of teleport platform scattered around the castle. However, the instruction is that the platform is only to be used during evacuation during emergency situation as the battery cost is too expensive for routine use.

"Hey, Steiner!" Lightning approached the group, "I may need your help!"

"Ah, you are still alive…." Steiner sounded surprise, "I saw from Crystal Orbs when you faced with Cid and he was about to shoot you… Tifa fired cannon and collapsed the floor and you two fell into the ground…"

"Yeah, I am lucky…" Lightning grinned, "Anyway, in this case, I need to head to the portal on the port to chase Sephiroth. I want to use the teleport platform on the warehouse if it is connected to the port…"

Steiner burst laughing, "That is a very honest admission of cheating intention!"

"They cheated my team THREE times!" Lightning grumbled, "They robbed the military carriage to fund ticket to Prima Vista, draining battery at teleport platform to cause us taking alternative route to navigate castle, and using fake Summon Stone to lead me to wrong direction!"

"Uh, Lightning…" Steiner sighed and faced her glare hesitantly, "I heard about the first two cases but unfortunately what we have only circumstantial evidence. It was not enough to be used as proof for their guilt in Dissidia Courts…the last one actually is totally within the rule…."

Lightning was angry and she grabbed both of his shoulders and pushed Steiner back and he was stunned as his armour clashed with the wall behind him. Two Alexandria knights tried to separate both of them but Lightning easily pushed both of them aside as they were thrown down to the floor. She leaned down her angry face to Steiner, gritting her teeth as Steiner looked intimidated by Lightning's eyes. She looked like she want to kill him.

"I WANT JUSTICE!" Lightning growled, "Your staffs penalized me for even breaking door of a single mansion but not punishing two such blatant important violation! And my team's life now on the line!"

Steiner gasped and replied, "The only back-up teleport platform in the warehouse is not used for long time already…theoretically if it is still working it should bring you to the corner of the port…But I cannot just let you use that without any caveat. I will need to impose this so we can report to committee without any penalty for Alexandria…"

"What will that be?" asked Lightning curiously, still glaring at Steiner.

"Well…." Steiner said hesitantly, "To ensure the fairness, you need to hand over one of your item – potion or phoenix down – so you got extra time, but less support for your final battle. I will record this down so I can be held accountable during post tournament evaluation meeting…"

Lightning released her grip on Steiner's shoulders, searched from her garb and suddenly realized that she just had only a single potion tube left and no phoenix down….Could she really face and defeat Sephiroth, the strongest Spiritus' fighter, _without _any single potion? She never did that in the entire tournament. Her past experience when fighting with opponent's team leader, she need _at least_ three potions….

But no…she thought…she will still face him although it seems impossible. She made the promise to Cloud she will guard both Tifa and Aerith and she cannot back away from her words…

"Okay!" Lightning replied and handed over the only remaining potion to Steiner, "Bring me in now!"

Both of them walked in to the warehouse and a lot of soldiers are walking around them. Most of them did routine inspection of containers which contain agricultural products, recording down their quantity and the types. There are also many antiques and treasure chests full of coinages and precious stones stored on the second storey, as it is an excess of donation by wealthy people of Alexandria to finance necessary preparation for Dissidia tournament. Lightning noticed that at one corner of the warehouse, there is an teleport platform - the same model as the one in Princess' throne room. In front of the platform, there is a panel full of switches and levers, looked as it is used to control the teleport platform.

Lightning stepped on the teleport platform at the warehouse corner while Steiner was configuring the machine near the platform.

"I must warn you first", Steiner stated, "This device has not been used for long time and there is a possibility of not functioning properly as it should be upon first trial..."

Lightning frowned upon his statement, "What would be the side effect of not functioning properly?"

"Well...various things. But from previous anecdotes, most common complaints is that you did not being transported at the right place, some complained that they were somehow stuck in-between parallel dimension whereby you are transported to the exact place but you cannot touch physical objects. But worst case is that your vitality may not be intact when you reached the destination."

Steiner's eyes watched Lightning who looked anxious as she sighed and crossed her arms on her chest and leaning her back on the wall. After he pulled a handle on the machine, the teleport platform beneath Lightning started to radiate bright yellow light and her body started to warp to another dimension

"All the best for you!" Steiner shouted and rising his thumb to Lightning. Afterward, she vanished and the light from platform disappeared.

* * *

Lightning saw that she was flying through a tunnel surrounded by blue lights and the sound of elements can be heard surround her, like thunder, water and quake. This is an expected thing as the teleport brought a person through constructed tunnel in outer dimension between two platforms. In outer dimension, there is no gravity force compared to original realm and hence you can travel many times further using same amount of energy. The energy from battery was used to propel a person to navigate outer dimension to the destination platform.

After awhile, she saw a light at the end of the tunnel. It looked like exit platform. As she approached, she can hear the blade sound was clashing and Tifa's sound of panting breath. But suddenly, Lightning was shocked by sudden electric jolt that permeated her body and she screamed in pain. When she almost reached the light, she felt the intense heat from as if there was a fire within her body. She trembled and began to lose consciousness...Apparently, Steiner was right. The tunnel construction was not properly completed and it resulted in abnormal elemental concentration near the exit. The elemental concentration caused Lightning's vitality was sucked dry.

Eventually, she reached the light and immediately fell down on her knees. She saw in front of her, an exit portal at the end of inlet port and several meters in front of it, Sephiroth was wielding his long blade and pointing to Tifa. She was leaning against light pole on the right side of the path. Her injury was quite bad as a lot of slash wounds everywhere on her cheek, shoulder, torso and thigh. In contrast, there was no visible injury can be seen from Sephiroth's body. Lightning suddenly noticed that Aerith lied down in front of her, motionless and she can see the blood tickling down from her back and bruise can be seen on her forehead. Apparently, Sephiroth's attack from behind had thrown her to the fence and knocked her unconscious.

"No...", Lightning cried when she saw Aerith's condition and was about to stretch her hand to reach Aerith but immediately feel intense pain on her body. She almost run out of her vitality. After awhile, her vision become blurry when Sephiroth noticed her presence. At that moment, she lost consciousness, dropped her head down and lied there motionless...

After watching Lightning collapsed motionless, Sephiroth looked back to Tifa with the wicked triumphant smile, "As you can see, your Savior is dead!"

* * *

Lightning awoken and opened her eyes. She raised her head and noticed that she is currently not in Alexandria port anymore. She was at the center of a empty hall and many large pillars erect surrounding her. A dim blue light shone from an opening from the ceiling, directed precisely to the floor where she lied down. In front of her, a large crystal with blue sapphire color is floating from the floor and on the top of the crystal, there is empty throne. She immediately recognized that this is the throne room of Temple of Goddess Etro in Valhalla. Lightning used both of her hands to raised her body up and surprisingly she did not feel any of her previous intense pain. And she also realized that currently she is wearing Knight of Etro costume instead of her Equilibrium garb. She is alone inside the throne room.

Lightning slowly walked towards the empty throne on the top of the crystal, "Why am I here?" she thought to herself, "Am I dead and this is where my spirit relocated?"

"No, you are not dead yet, Claire...", a woman's voice from behind Lightning surprised her. She immediately materialized her Overture gunblade and pointed it to the origin of the voice. There, she saw an appearance of middle-age woman dressed in blue sky gown with white inner dress. She has long purple shiny hair whose length reached her waist. On her back, she has a pair of closed angelic white wings and she is wearing a shiny crown, made with silver, with multiple precious stones around it. She has an icy blue eyes, same as Lightning, but her eyes were glowing with radiate blue light. Her expression looked gentle and yet sad at the same time.

"You...", Lightning somehow immediately recognized the women behind her, "Goddess Etro!"

Etro nodded while walking slowly to approach Lightning, "Yes, I am Etro...the Goddess of human spirit who ruled over Nova Chrysalia universe."

Lightning's soften her stance and withdrew her gunblade but still looking at Etro's eyes intently, "Why am I here? You brought me here?"

Etro shaked her head, "No, we are actually inside your mind, Claire. And I am actually a fraction of Etro's spirit who is dwelling inside your consciousness. It happened when I implanted part of my power when I transformed you into my champions in Valhalla."

"But I never knew this, you never manifest yourself in the new world.", Lightning replied her.

"Yes, Claire...", Etro answered, she still walked past Lightning and the glass stairs materialized to form path from the floor to her throne, "My spirit was activated inside you because you reached critical state in the battle. You faced great challenge in the tournament and almost lose your life..."

Lightning immediately remembered her memory when she witnessed Aerith lied down unconscious and Tifa is about to be slayed by Sephiroth.

"You want to help them...", Etro stated, "But in your current condition, you cannot do that...your vitality has been drained up when you were transported to exit portal"

Lightning surprised as apparently Etro has a capability to read her mind about Tifa and Aerith. She watched Etro's eyes intently while she still turned her head backward and faintly smile.

"I am a goddess, Claire. Of course, I can read your mind. Nothing in your life is hidden from me...", Etro continued and she reached the top of the crystal and sit on her throne. But when she sit, the smile was gone from Etro's face and her expression become serious.

"When last of my vitality drained because of saving you and other I'Cie, Nova Chrysalia turned chaotic because of uncontrolled chaos. You become a savior of Bhunivelze to migrate soul to his new world. However, two of you fought because of disagreement on the fate of new souls. You defeated and freezed him in Unseen Realm. This effectively render the new world without any deities to rule humanity, which is not the thing should be.", Etro explained.

"I will rather live in godless universe rather than to be ruled by _that_ god!", Lightning replied Etro angrily, "He captured both Serah and Hope's soul and want to destroy them after I finish my duty as his savior!"

"To be fair, " Etro continued, "Bhunivelze has his own mistakes. He used Serah and Hope as bargaining chip because he _needed_ you. After I endowed you with my power, you were effectively the strongest female warrior in your universe. But his intention was good and sincere, although his method was questionable."

"Are you defending him, Etro?", Lightning glared at her goddess but Etro is not intimidated by Lightning, calmly put her arms on the throne armrest, "He wanted to annihilate all deceased souls by Soulsong!"

"Calm down, Claire!", Etro replied, "First of all, the consciousness - core of the souls cannot be destroyed. It can only be split, merged or transformed. Soulsong will simply erase memory of past life for all deceased souls but their consciousness will still remain. Serah's soul will still be reborn in new world, although you may not recognize her since souls without memory are interchangeable. With the wickedness of human, what he planned is a plausible option - although I do not think it is a best one."

"Then, how do you think the things should be?" Lightning challenged.

Etro sighed, "The material world was never designed to be perfect in the first place because of new human souls were born every generation. Some of these souls will inevitably choose the way of evil and history told us as the time of prosperity come, humans become prideful and greedy, thus forgot their duty to guard the purity of their heart. But the world need the heroes, gods or goddesses, who were able to administer justice and keeping evil from overrunning society. We do not have such things now...", Etro then gazed upon Lightning intently, "You, Claire Farron, will be that goddess of new world!"

Lightning stunned with Etro's statement and her eyes were widening in disbelief.

"Etro, I am just normal human! I never want to be goddess! I want to live normal life - hanging around with my friends and family..." Lightning replied her.

"What I just said is not option, Claire!" Etro proclaimed, "Now, my spirit fragment has been attached to you and we cannot be separated. And you are selfish, too. You care only about your own little sister and your husband but not the fate of the new world? What make you different from Caius who wanted to kill me just to save Yeul at expense of the entire universe?"

Lightning trembled at the Etro's words and deep inside her heart, she was convicted of her guilt. Her head bowed down and she dropped her gunblade down to the floor.

"Be a good goddess, Claire!", Etro continued, her expression softened, "And your world will have long lasting peace. I will give my power to you so you will be triumphant against Spiritus' warriors. And pray to guard your heart so you will be able to overcome temptation. The being with such a power like you will go through many trials from evil one. "

Afterward, Etro stared at Lightning while the blue lights were radiating from her eyes, "Divine retribution will still be administered even for goddess who strayed to the way of evil!"

"You do not have to threaten me for that, Etro...", Lightning chuckled, "I guess you leave me with no choice. I am ready now". She slowly knelt down in front of Etro's throne and bowed her head as a sign of her resolution.

Etro smiled, she stood up and raised her angelic wings, and dashed to fly above Lightning. She slowly descended to approach her from behind and touched both of her shoulders. Lightning immediately felt the divine energy from Etro's body was flowing into hers and it made her tremble.

"Being a warrior goddess is a lonely path, Claire." Etro whispered, "You have a wonderful husband who adores you. He is a wise and faithful man - he may be a future leader of the new world. Love and protect him with all your heart and strength, as his eternal lover". At that instance, Lightning saw Valhalla disappeared around her and there are only bright white lights remained. She saw a door in front of her as it looked like the end of her dream. She run towards it and immediately returned to her consciousness.


	11. Chapter 12 - The Power of Lightning

Inside the throne room, Princess Garnet and Beatrix are watching the on-going battle in the port between Tifa and Sephiroth from magical mirror. Sephiroth is about to stab Tifa who was stomped on the ground but suddenly the bright blue light with huge burst of energy caused Sephiroth to be thrown away.

"WHAT IS THAT?" Beatrix asked, both she and Princess looked very surprised, "Lightning should be gone after that portal incident..."

Behold, they watched as the fire sparks were surrounding the spot where Lightning's body was and they saw that she stood up with her Ultima Blade unleashed. Her blue eyes were shining like stars, her rose colored hair brighten to be like flame, and the space around her looked as if it was filled with dense energy which caused the ground to crack. Sephiroth pulled himself to stand up from ground and cover his eyes to view Lightning, at the opposite side of port inlet.

"Is that magic, Princess? Received such critical wound, I cannot believe she can even stand now!" Beatrix wondered in amazement.

Princess Garnet shook her head, "No, it is not magic. She was not even conscious and nobody around her can cast such powerful spell...It seems that the energy is originated from within Lightning's body herself. As if she got this super power hidden inside her which got activated when her body reached critical state". Princess Garnet then smiled, "Interesting...the match is far from over...How about we watch the battle from the place itself? Could you activate the teleport platform to the port, Beatrix?"

Beatrix bowed her head and instructed some Alexandrian knights to configure control panel linked to teleport platform.

"Ah, one more thing!", Princess Garnet reminded, she giggled while facing Beatrix, "Do not forget to play One Winged Angel as a battle theme! It will be epic!"

* * *

Sephiroth and Lightning were separated by fifteen meters distance, facing and stared at each others on the field near the port where a lot of cargoes were stacked around them. On their left side, there is a large leisure ship tied to knot at the platform edge. On their right side, the five-storey light house and beside it, the stairs downward to iron gates with a tunnel connecting port with Alexandria Castle. Both Sephiroth and Lightning walked sideways, tried to scan for sign of any weakness on their opponent.

Sephiroth's green cat evil eyes met with Lightning's icy blue eyes. He swiped his masamune blade to his right side to cleanse it from Tifa's blood trace from its edge. The wind energy caused by its swipe caused the wooden fence on his right side shattered into pieces. He then grabbed his sword's handle with both hands, pointing it to Lightning. Tifa lied down motionless with her eyes closed facing the sky near Sephiroth's feet. Meanwhile, Aerith lied prone near Lightning's feet with deep wound on her back. Lightning also prepared her stance, raising her Ultima Shield up with her left hand and her Ultima Blade with right hand pointing down backward.

"As a team leader", Sephiroth proclaimed, "You are surprisingly lack of any teamwork and strategy. I wonder what for you bring these girls here. Or perhaps, you are too soft for leaving these fellows behind?". He made a wicked smile to Lightning, who showed same intensity of fierceness.

"I can easily win this round by just walking through that portal with Odin. But, it is not much fun without those cute faces of them who trembled in fear when my blade reached them...", Sephiroth then laughed sadistically and it provoked Lightning's anger.

"You will pay for what you have done to them!" Lightning growled. She stepped forward, ready to attack.

"Then, show me...that you are worthy of that title. Strongest female warrior, Lightning!" challenge Sephiroth, his green eyes also radiated with light.

Both of them instantly jumped forward to the air and their blade clashed with each others. The momentum from the clash thrown their body backward. Sephiroth landed with ship's body behind him and Lightning's heel hit a stack of cargoes. But they wasted no time and immediately dashed forward to attack. The speed of the battle is of high quality, with even higher intensity compared to battle of Odin. The techniques by both team leaders - slashing, thrusting, parrying, evading - looked executed quickly, accurately and intelligibly. Every clashing sword resulted in a burst of energy, enough to cause the ground below them to crack.

After some intense fight, they stopped but keeping their battle stances while recovering their stamina - looking for new strategy. Lightning immediately come with an idea and she slashed her blade forward and the wind energy reached Crystal Orb beside Sephiroth and it exploded. The pieces of the exploding crystal hurt him and caused bleeding wounds on his face and right shoulder. He gritted his teeth in anger as this is the first injury inflicted by his opponent on this round.

"First blood!" Lightning displayed her cocky, triumphant smile, "I will enjoy tearing you to pieces!"

"We will see about that!", replied Sephiroth with similar resolute eyes. He immediately dashed forward, his body enveloped by light blue energy. At instance, Lightning recognized he was about to perform Heaven's Light technique and she immediately rolled her body sideways. Sephiroth's attack caused the stack of cargoes behind her crushed into pieces. Not yet done. Immediately after that, Sephiroth jumped high backward to the sky - around ten metres above ground - holding his long blade with two hands above his head above Lightning, who gazed her head above. Sephiroth swung his sword downward and accelerated his descent with intense speed. This was the same technique he performed which caused Aerith's death in FF VII universe - Hell's Gate.

Because of his fast speed, Lightning was unable to dodge. She raised her shield and formed energy shield from Etro's power. Sephiroth's attack crushed the ground in front of her and the force caused her to fly backward. Some pieces of flying concrete hit her thighs and her side forehead, causing light bruises and a blood flow through small slice on her forehead to her eyebrow. She landed on her knees and but calmly stood up, wiping the blood from her forehead, and returned to her ready stance. That attack killed Aerith in instance (as she is never fighter in the first place) but it was almost nothing for Lightning.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes while turned his body to Lightning and grinned, raised his blade on horizontal position with two hands.

"Interesting...it has been awhile I see opponent like you...only Cloud is able to withstand my attack so far..."

"I am better than him!", Lightning proclaimed, pointing her blade to Sephiroth, "And you will soon find it out!"

She run forward and about to perform thrusting attack but Sephiroth changed to his one-winged schemata. He jumped sideways to the right and fly above. But Lightning already anticipated he will dodge and also jump to her leftward correctly. Approaching him on the air, she spun her body counterclockwise and swung her sword upward from bottom, starting to perform her signature combo, Army of One. Upon first view, Sephiroth prepared his energy shield and hold his sword horizontally at proper position to parry her attack. He has made deliberate preparation before tournament to memorize sequence of Lightning's Army of One attack so he can handle them properly. In fact, he parried all her attacks well - whether it is horizontal or vertical attack, counterclockwise or clockwise spin. However, on last attack Lightning released her Etro's energy so the momentum threw Sephiroth backward and he was unlucky. Behind him, there is a metal crane with its horizontal arm hanging on the air. His back clashed against the crane arm and he groaned in pain and fell to the ground. He fell on his knees but immediately rolled rightward as Lightning performed another attack to slam him on the ground with her blade from above. Her attack caused the concrete floor split to two, exposing the water beneath it.

Sephiroth immediately jumped backward and panting hard, enduring the pain on his back. This is the first time for his opponent to get upper hand against him. Now, his vitality is only around 20%, whereas Lightning is still around 40% and both of them had run out of potion. The battle is harder than his previous opponents, even including Cloud in fourth round of tournament. During that time, he actually gained upper hand against Cloud and almost won against him but because of time limit reached, the match ended with draw. However, this time he need to deal with the risk of his first loss in eleven rounds. Lightning may not be as strong as Cloud, but she far surpassed him in speed and agility, which proved to be more difficult to handle for Sephiroth.

"Do not worry, we have a plenty of time..." Lightning stated, knowing what inside his mind, slashing her blade to the air, "I will not let this match end with draw."

Sephiroth was angry because Lightning is looked like underestimated him. Obviously, he will not give up that soon. He raised his blade upward, gathering and concentrating green energy on its edge and about to perform his ultimate attack - Scintilla. Lightning narrowed her eyes to anticipate the timing of his attack. At instance, he performed a thrust with the light burst out from his blade. She managed to dodge the thrust. And then, he stepped forward and swung his long blade with radiate green light downward. This time, she was unable to dodge because of the long range and raised her shield to minimize the damage. Upon clashing with her shield, she felt electric jolt powerfully hurt her, dragging her behind.

She cringed because of the pain as she can feel the attack sucked large portion of her vitality. However, she quickly used her blade to tangle with Sephiroth's blade to halt the momentum. Their blade was intertwined and their faces leaned forward to stare at each others behind their blades. They tried to push their sword forward to overpower their opponent. Amazingly, although Sephiroth is much larger than Lightning (6'1'' compared to her 5'8'') but somehow she has a strength to withhold him. Apparently, the Etro's energy helped to augment her strength.

"Interesting, you are not as weak as your posture suggested...", Sephiroth smirked as he felt that Lightning's vitality has reached critical stage.

Lightning gritted her teeth, seems insulted by his comments. Triggered by anger, she butted her head forward to smack Sephiroth's face and he caught off-guard. Lightning's head hit his nose and disoriented him. Sephiroth immediately stepped backward to avoid further attack, but before he knew a burst of reddish light appeared in front of him and he saw that Lightning has transformed her Ultima Shield and Blade into twin blade Zantetsuken, she crossed both of them forward, prepared to perform her deadly slash - Lightning Strike. Sephiroth tried to sidestep to dodge but it is too late. Instantly, Lightning slashed both swords forward, accompanied by multitude of rose petals. The attack hit Sephiroth's sword arm, caused him to drop his masamune and overthrew him to the ground. He tried to stand but Lightning quickly reached and kicked him on his face.

Sephiroth lied on the ground with his vitality almost depleted, unarmed with Lightning stomped on his chest, standing in front of him proudly. The battle is over. She won.

* * *

Lightning's icy blue eyes impose the deadly glare at his green evil cat eyes, panted heavily and turn her head to watch over hurtful Tifa and Aerith, who are lying on the ground, hissed as all their bodies are filled with blade wounds from Sephiroth and their blood are flowing beneath them. Sephiroth watched over Lightning carefully from the ground. She is fierce but really attractive and sexy with her Equilibrium garbs. Sephiroth can view her bare thighs and black battle underwear from below and although he hated for being conquered and fear of her revenge, his male instinct is also attracted at her erotic appeal at the same time.

She looked back on Sephiroth, "I will not forgive you" as she gritted her teeth, "You still torture them even after you got your summons!".

Sephiroth tried to be calm while observing Lightning's eye. "You are supposed to protect them as their team leader but I managed to order my teammates to keep you busy", he replied calmly, "Everything is fair in war. My priority here is Odin, plus some of the pleasure I got with them...because of your negligence"

She held her chin up in disgust and imposing manner, "You assaulted them because they are weak women!", she accused Sephiroth.

She started to drag her Ultima Blade from Sephiroth's neck to his chest, creating slice and drawing blood from his skin.

"Now I will show you my power.." Lightning growled, raising her Ultima Blade with both of her hands with its edge pointing to his chest, "THE POWER OF THE GODDESS!"

Lightning screamed and instantly radiant blue lights burst from both of her eyes, her rose colored hair were glowing like burning fire, and divine energy enveloped her entire body. Her appearance really looked like goddess. Afterward, she unleashed her entire power and thrust on Sephiroth's chest. Upon thrust, Sephiroth screamed and groaned in pain. The sword went through his body and planted on the ground beneath him. Lightning gritted her teeth, continuing her aggression, she let her anger and passion take control of her entire being. She tighten the grip of her sword with both of her hand, her bicep muscles extend and becoming bulkier as she deepen the thrust. She knelt on his stomach and ground the sword with all her might and she can hear the sound of cracking stone beneath Sephiroth because the sword impale deeper. Sephiroth grabbed her collar and try to punch her, but Lightning is faster. She smacked her head into Sephiroth's face and make him collapse. She started to squeeze and rotate the sword and it make Sephiroth screamed.

"I am the Savior!" Lightning shouted, "I will deliver justice and slay evildoers!"

However, Sephiroth will not give up that easily. He grabbed the end on the blade, apply Slow magic and tried to stop her from stabbing further. Lightning tried to push but she still cannot proceed further, she growled in frustation. Normal male fighter should have died after receiving such a blow, but Sephiroth is not them and he will not die that easy. As the struggle continue for awhile, she is become increasingly impatient. Her breath and heartbeat become faster as adrenaline rushed through her body, screaming to draw the blood from her prey. She wanted to see more blood and she wanted it NOW! She continued her intense glare over him to scan for vulnerabilities. Then, suddenly she grabbed his black coat with her left hand, surprised him and aim for the artery on his neck. She fiercely bite him until he feel intense pain as her teeth pierced the flesh and causing blood overflowing from his neck, trickling down to his chest and shoulder. She closed her eyes and sucked some of the blood and moaned in satisfaction.

"Yes..." she whispered, "The taste of fresh blood feel so good..."

A sense of intense fear and pain can be seen from the men's face as the taste of blood awakened the beast inside her, making her craving for more.

"I am thirsty..." she hissed, "Your blood is mine!"

She bit him harder and exposed his veins, continue to enjoy sucking and licking his blood for several seconds, like hungry lioness enjoy devouring her prey. After sensing he started to lose consciousness, Lightning pulled out her bite and left him collapse in tremble. His grip on her blade starts to loose and his Slow magic started to disappear.

After silence for a second, she reopened her eyes and seeing him with her killing glare, she leaned forward her face to the side of his trembling face, his eye is closed.

"It's over..." she said intently, whispering to his right ear "Now, go to hell!"

After that, she instantly pulling back her sword. His blood splashed everywhere to cover her entire pretty face and rose-colored hair but she would not care about her looks. She loved the scent, taste and warmth of Sephiroth's blood covered her entire body, and it made her shiver...the man lied down there motionless, surely has passed away. Lightning draw back her sword, licked over the blood stain near her lips, sit down and straddle his body. She can feel Sephiroth's blood from the chest beneath her started to flow to both of her thighs and her private part, creating the sensation which made her tingling.

She starts gazing onto the sky above and in front of her, closing her eyes, and Sephiroth's blood started to trickle down from her hair, her brow...her nose and eventually to her side lips. She licked it and laughed to the sky, feeling so satisfied. As warrior goddess, she enjoyed the thrill of the execution of male enemies to assert her domination.

"Yes...evil men are powerless against goddess...", she muttered to herself, stared at Sephiroth's body below her. She recalled in her mind that she has beaten the entire Spiritus' all men's team, including their strongest warrior, by herself despite being cheated three times. She feels very proud about her achievement.

Lightning clenched her fists and pounded her chest, "I crushed them all with my own hands!"

"Light!" the female sound from behind her screamed.

Lightning turned around and saw Tifa and Aerith has regain consciousness and stand up, although still shivering, holding to the scar on their shoulder. Their expression changed when they saw Lightning turning her face to see them, still full of blood.

"You are scary, Light..." Aerith said slowly, "You literally ate him...".

Tifa put her hands on her mouth and hide behind Aerith upon seeing Lightning's bloody face. Lightning closed her eyes for awhile, sighed as she tried to regain her composure. Both female fighters are not used to see such aggression and ruthless act being performed by a female. Aerith and Tifa are both still feminine and they only fight for their life, unlike Lightning who fights for thrill.

"I am sorry if you watched it. ", Lightning chuckled "I do not intend this to be exhibition".

She smirked and stand up, wiping her bloody face with her garb's cloak, "I just felt angry when he tortured both of you and I want to give him lesson not to mess around with girls.." she said while turned her sight on Sephiroth's body and then crossing her arms on her chest, "Somebody need to do dirty job. And I will have a hard time explaining to Cloud if something happen to both of you. The responsibility is on my hand as your team leader"

She checked pocket of Sephiroth pants and grabbed a silver shining stone.

"We got the Odin already, let's go to the next world" she commanded, "And please don't tell anyone about this, especially Cloud..." Silently, Lightning is grateful that she still can rescue both of them on time. Otherwise, Cloud will not ever forgive her for being caught off-guard when she focused on defeating wrong enemies...

"Wait, Lightning!" shouted a woman's voice at the distance. Lightning glanced and saw that Princess Garnet and Beatrix, are standing on the light house at fifth storey on the corner of the port. Both of them seems watching what happened all times from there. "Dissidia tournament rule does not allow fighters to torture each others after defeat regardless of the situation. Now, you will be disqualified from twelveth and last round of battle for Ifrit Summon's Stone in Royal City of Rabanastre.", princess Garnet proclaimed.

Lightning sighed, she should knew but forgot about this rule, has been participating for ten rounds of tournament. She went overboard because of her rage. This is her first time leading a group of female fighters as Tifa and Aerith just joined tournament and usually the battle is performed one-by-one. She should knew better that she is the one that battle with Sephiroth instead of Tifa and Aerith.

Lightning bowed her head and replied, "Understand, Princess. I am sorry for that", Tifa caressed Lightning's rose hair from behind to remove blood stain and hugged her for support. After that, three of them walked towards time portal which opened in front of them and left Alexandria.


	12. Epilogue I - The Goddess and The King

Lightning, Tifa and Aerith were instantly being transported into Materia's palace. They arrived at the lounge where many Dissidia fighters, both team leaders and normal members watching on-going matches in front of magical mirrors, sitting and chatting, or sparring on the arena at the centre of the lounge.

The palace officials instantly rejoiced after Lightning showed them the Odin Summons' Stone from her pocket. Some people started to open champagne and balloons are released from the ceiling. Other Materia's team leaders, including Cloud, approached to congratulate them. Seeing condition of Tifa and Aerith, he quickly hugged them, first Tifa and then Aerith. After that, he approached Lightning and shook her hand, his another hand grabbed her shoulder as an appreciation.

"Really thankful you brought them here in one piece," Cloud said, "Hopefully, this is the last time you need to guard them."

"Don't mention it," replied Lightning, "It is my duty as the team leader, remember?"

"I almost failed that task," Cloud bowed down his head, "Tifa almost died in Sephiroth's hand during their encounter in Nibelheim…"

"Well, that's not an issue, I taught him how to behave already." Lightning proclaimed.

"I heard that you are disqualified from next round," Cloud replied, sounds concerned, "While you won on Alexandria Castle, another two teams – Tidus and Noctis – did not get good results. Tidus lost the battle for Shiva Summons Stone with Gerland while Noctis scored draw with his battle with Ardyn…so we still need to play next round to decide the winner of this tournament"

"Noctis did not win?" Lightning asked, looked surprised, "This is the first time I hear about this. Who was his opponent? Ardyn?"

Cloud sighed, "His opponent is very tough. He just joined three days ago. He is from the same universe as Noctis and his power is even greater than Sephiroth. And they will face each other again in Rabanastre for Ifrit battle – same as their battle in their universe"

"So, I supposed the final result of this entire tournament will depend on him next week." Lightning concluded, "But even if he lose, at most our side will just content with draw. Spiritus' team cannot overtake us."

"And also the final standing for Best Fighter Award.", Vaan interjected while watching both Lightning and Cloud, "Right now, our most beautiful warrior goddess is standing on the top of the table, you know? Even above Noctis and you, Cloud. In entire Dissidia tournament history, we never have female fighters even reached top ten.", Vaan smiled while gazing at Lightning's face. Lightning felt that her face is blushing, but quickly managed to regain her composure, crossing her arms on her chest.

"In battle there are no males or females," Lightning replied coldly, "There are only warriors."

"But that's not what most of us think," Zidane come from behind Vaan, keep teasing Lightning, "I think you have this special appeal as a female fighter, Light! When your opponent saw you, they are both so captivated by your beauty and it made them weaker than they should be. None of us male fighters have such appeal….", he approached Lightning's face and grinned.

Lightning instantly stretched her fist, about to punch Zidane at his stomach, but he dodged to the left side. Both he and Vaan immediately run away. Lightning grumbled and rolled her eyes, dislike the unwanted attention she got from this tournament. As far as she concerned, she only want to participate in this tournament to get prize money to help Hope to fund the research to revive advanced Cocoon technologies in her new world. Hope has a difficulty convincing people in new world to provide grant for those fancy research. Other than that, she just wanted to expose herself to meet various heroes in another universe.

"I am going to pack my stuffs. I cannot participate in next round anyway," Lightning continued and she walked towards the door at the corner, "See you again in closing ceremony, Cloud."

Cloud nodded, "It will be held in your universe. I will see you there."

"Hey, Light!" Rinoa and Yuna are walking, approaching both Lightning and Cloud, "Do you need some helps for packing? We can help you if you want. We want to hear from you some interesting stories about Alexandria!"

"I will leave you three alone.", Cloud said, "See you all!"

* * *

Later, Lightning found out that Noctis has won his lengthy battle with Ardyn in Rabanastre and her top position in the fighter table is overtaken by him. Not that Lightning care about it though. As far as she concerned, the prize money of 3 millions gils for her win as team leader, is sufficient for both herself and Hope cost of living for five years if both of them not working, plus the money they allocated to purchase land on the abandoned factory near their apartment and construct Hope's personal research lab on the top of it.

One week later, Dissidia committee has set up the closing ceremony at the beach resort near the city where Lightning and Hope stayed in the new world. All audiences gather at the Grand Hall of main building. Princess Ashe as the Dissidia committee of last round from Royal City of Rabanastre acted as presenter to announce various awards for Dissidia participants. All Lightning close friends and families, including Serah, Snow, Fang, Vanille, Sazh and his son, Noel and Yeul, and of course Hope, also attended the event. All participants wear their default costume during tournament, so Lightning wear her Equilibrium garb when sitting on the seat.

In total, there are five awards being announced during closing ceremony:

\- Best Fighter Awards (Materia's side)  
1) Noctis Lucis Caelum (Gold - 11.5 points)  
2) Lightning Farron (Silver - 11 points)  
3) Cloud Strife (Bronze - 10.5 points)

\- Best Fighter Awards (Spiritus' side)  
1) Sephiroth (Gold - 10 points)  
2) Gerland (Silver - 10 points)  
3) Vayne (Bronze - 9.5 points)

\- Best Marksman Awards (Overall)  
1) Yuna (Gold - 7 points)  
2) Aerith (Silver - 6 points)  
3) Rinoa (Bronze - 5.5 points)

\- Best Host Committee Awards (Overall)  
1) Princess Garnet (Alexandria City)  
2) Ignis Scientia (Insomnia)  
3) Princess Ashe (Rabanastre)

\- Best Team Performance Awards (Overall)  
1) Noctis, Cloud and Zidane (Rabanastre - 12th round)  
2) Lightning, Tifa and Aerith (Alexandria - 11th round)  
3) Ardyn, Sephiroth and Gerland (Rabanastre - 12th round)

Each winner of the award takes turn walking to the stage, taking statuette and medals, posing for picture, and returning back to seat. The distribution of cash prize is being done after award ceremony. It is followed by banquet and participants chatted and ate with each others, some committees organize city trip for participants. After nearing 9pm, the ceremony is officially closed and participants returned back to their respective universe.

Lightning's friends and families set up a camp near the beach shore to continue the conversation. They exchanged their life update. Serah has just delivered her first daughter and she named her Lumina. Snow did various part-time jobs but eventually managed his certification as electrician and opened his own small contractor firm. Fang and Vanille opened a restaurant, Sazh managed to reunite with his wife, started to enroll his son in public school, and worked as airplane mechanic. Life has become normal routine for everyone, except Lightning, who participated in Dissidia tournament.

* * *

Time showed around 10pm, Lightning and Hope sit down together at the beach gazing towards the sea. All of their friends have returned to the camp and slept while they finally have their precious private time together. Hope is wearing his hawaii green-orange polo-tee shirt and loose white sport pants. Lightning is wearing tight orange tank top with army-pattern short. They talked about various things such as tournament, future career and family plan and their purpose of life in new world.

"It's too bad that Noctis managed to overtake you in the last round," Hope teased his wife, "Otherwise, it will be a big news for you are able to win that prestigious awards."

"I always beat him in armwrestling though.", Lightning grinned, flexing her right bicep in front of Hope, whose eyes are widening upon hearing her words.

But upon realizing his wife is strongest female fighter, Hope sighed, "But I think for you...most men are weak...including me, Light..."

Lightning frowned upon Hope's assessment, "I am not the strongest one, Hope. Cloud and Squall are stronger than me. It is just during battle you need more than physical strength. Strength wise, it is Cloud. But, I am the fastest among three of us."

"How about Noctis?", asked Hope curiously, "He is not as strong as Cloud or as fast as you, I supposed..."

Lightning rested her head between her bending knees and answered, "He is more like intelligent fighter. During sparring, I realized that the thing that make me hard to beat him is unpredictability. He has his Armiger - twelve weapons - all of them are good in different area - and it is hard to beat opponent whose fighting style always changed. Additionally, his signature move, Warp Strike, allow him to teleport to his enemy's vicinity to attack or dodge. You need a very good intuition and patience to cope with such fighting style - guessing where he likely will teleport - which I do not have."

Lightning lied her body down on Hope's lap and continue, "His last battle with Ardyn - which has similar style - lasted for two hours. My battle with Sephiroth lasted only twenty minutes. "

Hope looked shocked, "I _never_ hear the battle that last that long! Well...except maybe you and Caius..."

Lightning lightly punched Hope's chest, "You idiot...in Valhalla my body has infinite stamina and no concept of time...not here in the tournament. The longer the battle drag, the more difficult for me to beat Noctis. Also, he is the best team leader. He can create great strategy for defeating Summons who need multiple fighters to defeat"

"I am satisfied enough for second though, by winning against strongest Spiritus' warrior," Lightning smiled, raising up, and gently butting her head to Hope, "The most important one is the funding for your research. How is the result for your doctoral application?"

"I have been accepted with self-funding," Hope replied, "The topic of the research will be ethics of artificial intelligence in society. My professor is a well-known consultant who is regularly called for meeting with the government council during formulation of public policy. He said I should not have any technical difficulty, since my grade for technical courses have been excellent. The duration of the program will be just four years if you pay by self funding instead of six years if you take university scholarship. Thanks to your prize money from Dissidia, Light!". Hope caressed and played with her wife's bun hair.

"So, you are okay with participating in such public policy debate, huh?" Lightning asked with a bit of skeptical tone, "Honestly, I don't like anything involving politics, after our battle with Sanctum in Cocoon."

"Light, Sanctum was absolute theocracy. In our new world, government does through consultation with citizens and private partners during their formulation of public policy...I think it will be good for me to prevent such thing like super AI like the one I created in Cocoon do not manifest here in new world"

"We can always fight them back if things go wrong," Lightning chuckled, "As if people in high places will listen to reason"

"You are too biased because of your experience, Light..." replied Hope, "I have been a research director in new world, remember? I really read, meditate and replied every single emails that were sent to me by citizens about my AI fal'Cie project. Of course, not all suggestions are entertained, but at least I can make sure that I was doing right thing..."

Lightning turned her head, gazed upon her lover's eyes intently, and putting her head on his shoulder, "But you are not policy makers, Hope. Though I wish you really are. You are a leader with good heart...", she spoke softly and stretched her left hand to hold Hope's waist, "Better than all Sanctum officials and any gods...I wish you to be my king.."

"Uh, I think it is an exaggeration...", Hope replied in shy, "You are not usually that poetic, Light..."

Lightning grinned, "It must be Etro. I adopted some of her traits when she infused herself into me". Earlier, Lightning has told Hope about her encounter with Etro but she deliberately did not mention Spiritus because it caused unrest for her.

Hope poked Lightning's shoulder, "By the way, I heard from Tifa that Spiritus tried to convince you to join their side..."

Lightning's expression immediately turned into serious, she released her grip on Hope's waist and put her palm on her forehead.

"He offered me to become Supreme Goddess of the Underworld and his wife. Essentially, to become a head of his army. He said he saw that I really enjoyed thrill of the battle and feeling of power, and think that I am very similar to a lot of his own soldiers. He offered to me to take Sephiroth's life and give half of his power to me, sit together with him on his throne...to conquer other universes..."

Hope's expression turned shocked like seeing ghosts. Obviously, he knew that his Lightning has been a warrior since a very young age. However, she did that for a sake of protecting her younger sister. But somehow along the way, he sometimes noticed the dark side of her which appeared during intense battle. In Lake Bresha, he recalled Lightning chopped and stabbed crippled cyclops while laughing sadistically. He also remembered when they were being surrounded by PSICOM armies in Palumpolum when she dispatched the entire platoon. At the end, she stepped on the head of one dying soldier and sliced his neck using her gunblade cold-bloodly and moaned in satisfaction. Could it be that Spiritus, as spiritual being, able to see Lightning's corrupted heart? Hope worried that the constant engagement in battlefield somehow has turned his lover into a monster...

"How did you answer him, Light?", Hope whispered on her ear while hugging her shoulder. A silence for awhile and no answer. Suddenly, he began to notice that Lightning body's is trembling and she began to cry.

"Is he true, Hope? Am I such a monster?" Lightning glanced her eyes on Hope, her eyes full of tear, "Is it true that it's impossible for me to live a fulfilling life without any battles and wars?"

Hope immediately hugged his lover's body tightly, "Listen, Light...during the time of adversity, a lot of people committed sins including you and me...But you need to reflect your original intention, right? You fought your battle to save humanity..."

"Even if you said so...", Lightning interrupted, "I have this uncomfortable feeling since we were reborn in this new world. My work in Guardian Corps here is much different compared to the one in our old world. We mostly just do regular border patrol and occasional vehicle inspection. There are no fights against monster and humans. I am supposed to be happy but somehow I do not feel that. As if I am addicted to be in battlefield..."

Hope released his hug but maintained his grip on her shoulders, looking intently into Lightning's eyes, and gently headbutting her.

"My dear, Light...you think too much. I have been knowing you for a thousand year, remember?", Hope tried to persuade her, "You are not an evil sorceress or goddess...you are my Guardian Angel and my Savior, you saved and protected me during the Purge and also from Bhunivelze...you have provided me as breadwinner in this new world...that's the truth...". He started to roll around Lightning's bun by his fingers and wiping her tear from her eyes. She gently smiled and closed her eyes, resting on his chest, her heart is at ease for his encouraging words.

"I also will always pray that your spirit will be protected from temptation of evil one...including Spiritus.", Hope placed both of her palms on Lightning's fingers while watching her tearful eyes, "I will never let you alone..."

"Hope...thank you," Lightning replied while still crying and hiccuping, "I feel...loved...". She took a deep breath and managed to regain her composure. Hope gazed upon his lover's face to sympathize. Lightning is not the type of girl that easy to get cry - this is the first time since they reunited in new world she showed the vulnerable side of her, making usual cold warrior goddess to look more feminine.

"Having said that...I think you got used to intense physical activities...", Hope continued, "That's why you are feeling unrest during normal maintenance work. You want a thrill you can get from fighting criminals or in battlefield...". He think deeply for awhile then suddenly got an inspiration, "I have an idea for you"

"What?" asked Lightning curiously.

"In this new world, a lot of commercial tournament for physical game activities. We do not have those games in Cocoon, but here they have soccer, basketball, baseball, platforming based reality shows, and so on. I think it should provide you with necessary adrenaline rush", Hope explained, "You can quit Guardian Corps and try to participate in these public tournament! I am sure you enjoyed it more than your routine job of border patrol!"

"But sports and battle are two different things...I do not think I can directly compete there without practice first...", Lightning said.

"That's why the prize money from Dissidia come in handy," Hope grinned, "Thanks to that money, you do not need to be continuously employed. You can just quit your job and to practice the sports you want to master..."

Lightning think deeply for awhile and seeing Hope intently, "Do you think I can do that?"

Hope burst laughing, "Lightning Farron, the warrior goddess, doubted her ability! It is rarer than purple squirrel!". Lightning's cheek blushed red, but she smiled and jokingly punched Hope on his shoulder.

"Also, while waiting for you to master those sports...I have an idea for you to experience the thrill...", Hope said, raising up from the ground, and slowly walked away from her, "Chase and catch me!"

"What?" Lightning frowned, "Why do I need to catch you?"

"I am a thief," Hope teased and grinned, "I just stole your heart. You, as a police woman and a lioness, need to chase me, your prey. Catch and punish me."

Lightning surprised but burst laughing after she deciphered the meaning, "You are such a naughty boy, Hope! I do not know you are a masochist..."

"Every men will be masochist if it is you who pursue them. You looked so sexy to me when you are fierce and passionate, Light..." Hope teased, beginning to step backward towards a pedestrian path away from seashore. Lightning closed her eyes to enjoy Hope's praise for awhile, but reopened it with intense glare and with her signature of cocky, confident face during battle. Her previous vulnerable side has gone and the soldier girl was back to her tomboyish, assertive side. This is the real Lightning, who made Hope so attracted to her.

"No men will escape my hands!", Lightning declared with prideful smile, "Including you, Hope!"

Hope started to turn his back against Lightning and run away. Lightning dashed forward and quickly chased him.

* * *

Hope and Lightning engaged in cat-and-mouse game for awhile. He headed towards underpass which connected sea shore to the beach resort complex. The resort closed on 9pm, there was relatively few security guards patrolling around, and all people have left the resort by this time. Inside the underpass, it has both monorail and pedestrian path. The monorail is automatic and driverless, it takes around 15 minutes by monorail from seashore to reach the exit of beach resort.

Hope descended to underpass by stairs. His stamina was running out and his legs become heavy. Lightning was still chasing him, with eyes of intense determination. She quickly cut the distance between them as Hope's speed become slower. Not long afterward, Hope tried to board monorail to escape his lover, but Lightning is faster. Before door closed, she jumped forward and pounced on her prey. Both of them collapsed to the floor of the monorail, with Lightning straddled on the top of Hope's body and her hands pinned his hands above his head. Their eyes are looking to each others. Both of them looked excited. The monorail door closed automatically afterward and it started to move.

"It is useless to test me. I am always faster and stronger than you, Hope...," Lightning teased as she licked her lips seductively, "I am so hungry after three weeks without tasting you..."

"I love it when you pinned me down...", Hope teased Lightning back, "My body is yours...eat as you want, Light". He closed his eyes as sign of complete surrender, "My beautiful lioness..."

"You are such a handsome prey...", Lightning brushed Hope's silver hair by her nose and smelled his scent, "I will enjoy eating you...with passion and love..."

She released her grip on Hope's hands and ripped his hawaii shirt apart. After that, she started to suck, lick and bite softly both of his nipples and it makes him shuddering. From his nipples, she proceeded to do same things to his shoulders, his neck and his ears. Soon, Hope's body become full of love bites from Lightning. His lioness was marking his body as her property. Hope never resists her and letting her do what she wants because deep inside his heart, he really enjoyed it. He loved himself to be powerless and Lightning to be dominant side during sex.

After sometimes, Lightning released her bite from Hope's neck and moaned in satisfaction. She panted hard and tried to calm herself and so do Hope. A moment later, she become calmer, and proceed to next step. She began to drag down her army shorts with underwear to her knees and put it aside. And then, she used both hands crossed to grab hems of her orange tank top and pull slowly to expose her bare athletic body, tossed the fabrics behind her. Now, Hope can see her lover's body in her full glory.

"My gorgeous Light...", Hope pleaded, his voice is full of adoration, "Reign upon my throne, and be my goddess! I will be your servant, only for you..."

Lightning immediately understood what he meant - he wants her to sit on his face. Although they have married for one year, they have not explored facesitting as their sexual relation is reserved. However, Lightning gradually become more aggressive and confident as Hope encouraged and enjoyed her dominance. She closed her eyes to absorb and enjoy the feeling of complete power over her lover.

"Yes, Hope...", she whispered, "This is the time...I will be your goddess...I will rule over you!"

Lightning reopened her eyes and continued her glare at Hope which was obviously bewitched by her body - he just lied down beneath her motionless. Lightning tilted her chin up, displayed her trademark cocky triumphant smile. Hope really liked the way Lightning's eyes stared at him, full of confidence of her own beauty and power. She slowly crawled until she sat on his face. Hope really enjoyed the ability to view, feel and smell Lightning. The view of her toned abs and firm breasts. The scent of her sweat and pussy is so intoxicating. Hope is slightly taller (177cm) than Lightning (172cm) but he has thin build. In contrast, Lightning has athletic build and all her muscles are hard like rock because of intense regular training. Her weight (70kg) is even heavier than him (65kg). He loved her tall and strong body, full of battle scar, towering above his head, making him feel powerless. Hope was totally captivated by her.

"My mighty goddess, you are beautiful beyond words, your strength surpassed even finest men, your smell is like rose of heaven. You slayed evil god and rescued me. I rejoice when you ascend on my throne...", praised Hope, his eyes are closed, and he took deep breath by his nose to smell scent of her pussy. Immediately, Lightning burst laughing and her cheeks were blushing upon hearing Hope's poetic confession. No one can be such romantic with her than Hope. She never encountered such experiences with men who approached her in Guardian Corps before. Instead of feeling intimidated, Hope admires strong and dominant women like Lightning.

"You are expert on how to flatter woman, Hope...", Lightning grinned and caressed his silver hair, tracing his left cheek with her finger, "Thanks, that was so sweet..."

"Your muscles are so perfect...", Hope used his right hand to lightly press Lightning's toned abs, touched her bulky shoulder and tricep, and playing with her hair. Lightning looked enjoying his touch, but quickly grasped his palm and pinned him again.

"My goddess crushed all her enemies by herself...", Hope continues to praise Lightning, "What can men do to resist you, Light..."

"Yes...nothing you can do to escape me, Hope...", Lightning whispered seductively, slowly grinded against his face, "I will overpower you and you will enjoy it...". After that, she flexed both of her biceps, widening her cocky smile, while still watching his eyes.

"Your throne is mine!", Lightning proudly declared, "Now, obey my commands!"

"Yes, mighty goddess...", Hope winked, "Unleash your passion...ask and it will be done..."

Lightning's face changed to fierce, she grabbed Hope's silver hair with her fist, stared at him passionately, slowly tighten her muscular thighs to squeeze Hope's face until it turned reddish. Then, she commanded with authority, "Fuck me and do not dare to stop, Hope...SERVE YOUR GODDESS NOW!"

Lightning's words made Hope aroused and his dick become hard. He really enjoyed seeing the fierce and passionate face of his tomboy lover to show her dominance. Hope breathed hard and started to administer his lick to Lightning's clits and vagina. Lightning closed her eyes, starting to enjoy the sensation of his tongue exploring her. Hope enjoy looking at his lover's face that felt so satisfied.

"Yes...good boy, Hope. You are good servant..." praised Lightning while tightening her grip with her right hand to Hope's front hair while her left hand grabbed back of his head, pushing his head towards her pussy. After few minutes, Hope slapped Lightning's thigh to indicate he need air. Immediately, she released her grip on his head and moved her bum backward. Hope panted hard and his mouth is full of Lightning's juice. She gazed upon him intently and caressing his hair to show her love to him. Although dominant, Lightning is still gentle towards Hope.

"Do you like my taste, Hope?", Lightning grinned and gently wiping her juice from his mouth.

"Your taste is sweeter than finest honey...", teased Hope while watching her icy blue eyes, "Unlike Bhunivelze, my goddess is so beautiful, inside and outside. I want to be your servant forever..", Hope kissed Lightning's pussy while gazing on her eyes. Lightning's cheeks turned reddish and she burst laughing.

"Are you sure you want to be under my ass everyday?", she asked while tilting Hope's chin up with her fingers, "It is not very manly thing, Hope..."

"This is your reward for rescuing humanity, providing and protecting me...", Hope insisted, "I do not mind to be your toy, Light...". Hope raised his body, caressing Lightning's scar above her eyebrow, inflicted during battle with Sephiroth.

"After my service...", Hope promised, "My warrior queen will return to her perfect beauty, fully recharged and her passion will be fully satisfied..."

Lightning licked her lips and smiled mischievously. Her passion aroused upon hearing his words, "Better keep your promise this time, nerdy boy...", she quickly leaped, locked his head between her thighs, and grinded her pussy forcefully. "FUCK ME NOW!", shouted Lightning while stared at Hope. He thrusted and shook his tongue deep inside.

"Yes! Fuck me harder, Hope! Give me pleasure!", shouted Lightning and grabbed his hair tighter. He obeyed, also using his nose to brush her clits. Lightning closed her eyes and rocked her hips harder to ravish his face as the fire slowly ignited within. Hope enjoyed being dominated and watching Lightning is full of ecstasy while riding him. She looked so pretty, strong, and liberated. "You are so beautiful, Light...", Hope proclaimed while stroking her clits, "Awake, my goddess!".

"Aaahhhh...", screamed Lightning in joy, raised her head facing ceiling as she reached her orgasm upon Hope's tongue reached her spot. Her eyes were glowing with radiant blue lights like when she executed Sephiroth, caused by energy burst from Etro's spirit inside her. Her breath is uncontrollable while trying to control her leg position not to strangle Hope. She calmed herself, wiped her sweaty chest, and watched down her lover's face, full of her juices.

"Thanks, Hope...you are amazing lover...It felt so good...", tears were overflown from her eyes. Her entire body feel rejuvenated. Hope gazed on Lightning's eyes, grinned while licked her juice, "I am so happy to see you enjoyed it, Light...". Lightning noticed that all of her scars are gone, her skin as smooth as silk. He has casted his Curaga magic through his tongue and it healed her completely.

"I shall bless you, Hope, my king...with the dew of my body...You shall eat and be satisfied..." Lightning declared like a deity talking to a mortal. She put one of her hand on her chest, closed her eyes and continue, "My king saved me from chaos, comforted me when my heart in trouble, and served me for my pleasure. Therefore, I swear to love, to provide and to protect you from evil, whether it is a monster, human or god. This is my eternal covenant to you as your goddess"

Lightning reopened her eyes with bright blue lights still radiate from them. Hope felt hesitate but at ease when the lights faded and she widened her smile. They looked at each other with full of love.

"I never knew you can vow like that, Light...", commented Hope.

"Etro really like you, Hope. It was her who vowed just now.", Lightning explained, "You are so adorable..."

"I love you, Light..", Hope raised and kissed Lightning gently, "My warrior goddess..."

"I love you too, Hope. My beloved king...", Lightning replied, hugging and caressing his silver hair as her response.

Goddess of King from above and King of Goddess from below went silent for awhile to enjoy themselves and not long afterward, the monorail stopped and reached the exit.


	13. Epilogue II - The Everlasting Twin Love

After Dissidia tournament is over with Materia's side won the game, her side was given enough Crystal energy to resurrect people who has passed away during games in each Final Fantasy universe or during the tournament itself. For Cloud, this is his only motivation of joining Dissidia tournament instead of prize money, like Zidane or Lightning. He want to resurrect his love interest, Aerith, who was killed by Sephiroth when she prayed and spelled Holy in City of the Ancients to protect the planet.

If Lightning Farron is a warrior goddess who fearlessly challenged and fought against corrupt establishments - including her own government and god - to rescue both her sister Serah and her lover Hope then Aerith Gainsborough is her antithesis. She is a healer goddess who has took care of orphans in church, cultivating her flower for her care of planet, rescued both Tifa and Cloud multiple times, including during their fall into Lifestream at Mideel and recover Cloud's true memory. As the last surviving Cetra - pre-human demigod race - Aerith's spirit has a complete control of Lifestream, which she has used to destroy the Meteor. Cloud may have defeated Sephiroth, but it was Aerith who rescued the planet by her summoning of Holy.

Of course, Cloud also loves Tifa – after all they have shared so much experience as childhood friends, Nibelheim incident at Mount Nibel, and later their adventure with AVALANCHE group against Shinra, and together defeated both Jenova and Sephiroth at Northern Crater. Both Tifa and Aerith also respected and loved each other and after meteor incident is over, Tifa took Aerith's mother, Elmyra, under her care. Tifa did sometimes felt a bit jealous when seeing both Cloud and Aerith are so close and romantic to each others and Cloud has never done such thing for her - maybe because he perceived her to have more practical and tomboyish personality. And she is also the type of person who cannot express her emotion in straight forward manner, so she keep her feeling to herself.

So after tenth round of the tournament, Materia's side has accumulated enough Summons Stone and points to resurrect people from their universe, Cloud without any hesitation chose Aerith to be resurrected. Initially, after resurrected, he told her to stay in Midgar until he returns from tournament. However, she is persistent, and willing to be enlisted in tournament to meet Cloud more quickly. After all, it has been three years since the event in FF VII universe and she missed him so much.

After Dissidia closing ceremony, three of them are back to normal life. Cloud with Tifa are back to their Strife Delivery office in Edge, outskirt of Midgar. By the prize money he earned during tournament, Cloud built a shophouse with flower store on its first floor just beside their office for Aerith and also renovating Tifa's 7th heaven bar on another side of office to add gym on it. Tifa is surely happy to meet her long-time companion after awhile and Aerith is able to help her to take care of Marlene and other orphan children in nearby neighbors. Tifa operated new gym and took her spare time to practice and teach her martial arts there. She also helps Cloud with necessary logistics required for his company.

Cloud has been thinking this for a long time before the tournament. Now, Aerith has been resurrected, he want to make it clear the status of his relations to both Tifa and Aerith. Although Cloud and Tifa has cohabited in one building (but not the same room), they have not been officially married yet. Weekend has come and he invited all of his former compatriots - Barrets, Cid, Red XIII, Cat Sith, Yuffie, Vincent, and both of Tifa and Aerith, to Gold Saucer to celebrate their reunion after Dissidia tournament and also to date both Tifa and Aerith.

* * *

It is Saturday morning at 8am and Cloud silently sit on the desk on his office himself, stretching his hair, thinking about how would he asked and arranged the date for both Tifa and Aerith. The invitation to his compatriots is easy part of the entire picture and it has been done. Now, the most important parts - how would he somehow asked to date BOTH of them at the same place? For Tifa, the thing is somehow quite more simple because they have been together for awhile but how does she feel when she knows that he also dates Aerith at the same time? He knew that so far Tifa and Aerith did not show any sign of animosity to each others, but that was during the time when their relationship with him not as intimate as now. As far as he concerns, he is the only person in the Dissidia tournament, Final Fantasy game, and their neighborhood who has _two _love interests - so he has nobody to advise him how to manage this.

Cloud knew that by this hour, Aerith should have awoken, performed her half-hour routine Saturday morning prayer. Afterwards, she started to water flowers on the pots and feeding stray cats nearby their residences, and preparing simple salad sandwich and mushroom soup breakfast for three of them. Meanwhile, Tifa has finished her morning gym exercise, took shower, and currently checking inventories from the bar warehouse, ensuring that most popular wines, beers and snacks on 7th heaven are fully on the stock, and instructed Marlene to shop to nearby stores otherwise. Both of them should be available to talk. He need to quickly ask them to date.

Cloud decided to ask Tifa first. He took deep breath, calmed his mind by closing his eyes and walking to Tifa's 7th heaven bar beside his office. He entered through the front door which has been unlocked. The bar should be opened at 9am although usually it is relatively few people until lunch time.

Cloud looked at Tifa who is recording list of wines from a shelf in the warehouse, her back is facing Cloud. She is wearing her black tank top with blue jeans trouser, her left hand is holding an open small notebook and her right hand is spinning a pen. Cloud noticed that her hair is still a bit wet - looked like she just finished her shower. He approached and called her.

"Excuse me...", Cloud spoke softly while trying to control his composure. Tifa noticed a presence behind her but did not recognize it is Cloud, because his voice seems softer than usual.

"I am sorry, we are still not open...", she replied while turned her head around and surprised when seeing her childhood friend there, "Cloud? What are you doing here?"

"Uh...I am...", Cloud stretched back of his hair and turned his head down. Tifa frowned curiously, leaning her head down and waving her left hand in front of Cloud's face.

"Are you OK, Cloud?", Tifa asked, looked a bit anxious watching his cheeks become blushing.

Cloud turned his head forward and gazed upon Tifa's eyes, "Regarding our tour tomorrow to Gold Saucer, I just checked that there is actually a new attraction - it's called Jurrasic Park Rapid Adventure - I would like to have both of us for this ride in the morning. Is it ok for you?"

"Only _both _of us?", Tifa put her notebook on the desk in front of her, "If it is a new attraction, I am sure that our friends also want to try, right? Why don't we ride together with them?"

"Uh...actually I said to them we will meet there at 10am but the park has already opened at 9am. ", Cloud explained, while closely walked towards Tifa, "There is less people in the morning so it is a good private time for us". Cloud put his hands behind Tifa's waist and she responded by putting her hands behind his neck.

"If you have something to say, you know that you can always talk to me," Tifa suggested as her intuition told that Cloud has something important in his mind.

"Yes...", Cloud replied, "But now it is not enough time. We will have a breakfast soon and you will need to send Marlene and Denzel to school after this."

Tifa giggled while listening to Cloud's excuse and pinched his left cheek, "You are a terrible liar, Cloud!". He looked embarrassed while rubbing the spot Tifa just pinched.

"But it is fine with me", Tifa continued while smiling at him, "It has been awhile since you asked me for a date, really..."

* * *

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith gathered at dining room inside Cloud's residence at the middle. After finish talking with Cloud, Marlene come back and handed over several shopping items to Tifa and she put everything in proper places. Aerith has finished breakfast menu for three of them and also cooking lunch for Marlene, Denzel and other five children and packed it into lunchboxes. Three of them were enjoy eating while talking about things in the news. The latest news is that yesterday, Shinra has announced that they will go through major restructuring because of profit collapse and around 80 to 90 percents of staffs will be retrenched. All related research facilities to Mako energy have been converted to research on alternative energies and Major of Midgar announced the urban reforestation program and invited citizens to create community garden nearby their residence.

"It's looked like exciting time for you, Aerith!" commented Tifa upon hearing the news, "I recalled that you have essentially created seed bank."

Aerith smiled and replied, "After everything is over, I am happy to start again from the beginning. The district chief has briefed our neighbor yesterday afternoon and starting from today, unused land will be converted to garden to get fresh produce. And all of us will eventually eat everything organic from the garden, from vegetables, fruits and grains. And hopefully your health will be improved. Currently, the pollution in our district is also quite bad. More greenery could resolve that issue as well..."

Cloud's eyes are widening in surprise, "Wow...I just knew that you are also fond of horticulture and organic living...I only knew that you cultivate flowers..."

"Yes...since I was immersed in Lifestream for three years, I have all related knowledge to resolve environmental problems. To restore planet into a healthy state require not only abandonment of Mako energy. All of these things - organic living, reforestation, recycling, use of clean energies, healthy dietary habit - are helpful for the Planet and if all people adapt into it.", Aerith explained and grinned towards Tifa and Cloud, "I wish you two also start to adopt healthier diet!"

Tifa felt a bit awkward since her dietary habit is opposite to what Aerith suggested - she is a vegetarian. As far as she knew, her active physical activities necessitate her to consume protein-based diet and lesser carbs.

"Is it possible to get so much energy by just consuming vegetables?" asked Tifa curiously, "Inadequate energy intake will result in muscle loss and fatigue, I think..."

"You can eat more often, Tifa.", replied Aerith, "Just that it is better for you to eat less processed grains, cereals, beans and nuts. It should be enough to replace your protein intake from the meat. If you are interested, I can try to prepare this menu for next week and see the result! I guarantee you that your performance in gym will not be affected!"

"Uh, ok...", Cloud interrupted, "But I prefer to do it more gradually? Maybe we can abstain from the meat on the dinner every weekend?"

"Good start", Aerith nodded, "You said it already, Cloud. I am waiting for the real action!"

"Sister!", Denzel called from outside, "It is almost 8:30am already, we will be late!"

Tifa stood up and lightly hug Cloud and Aerith, "I go first. I will see you later in the afternoon". After Tifa left, it is a time for Cloud to invite Aerith for the date.

* * *

Both Cloud and Aerith were left alone at the living room after Tifa left with Marlene, Denzel and other children.

"So, Aerith...", Cloud gazed upon her lovely green eyes, "How do you think the new life? After all we have experienced in the tournament..."

"I am really thankful for all of these, Cloud...", Aerith answered, "You have risked your life to participate there for saving me...it is not like I was needed in the world after Sephiroth. He was gone and life has back to normal..."

"You are right...the world does not need you. But I am...", Cloud replied while walking approach her. Aerith's cheeks are blushing and she tried to turn her face away from Cloud. She stood in front of window with her back facing Cloud, watching sunrise.

"I can read your mind when I was in the Lifestream...", Aerith mumbled slowly, "You were dreaming frequently about me and calling me in your sleep..."

"Then you should know that my intention is sincere." Cloud answered, "We have been through so much thing together. I knew that you were used to be Zack's girlfriend...but..."

Aerith turned back to see Cloud, "Both Zack and you are equally valuable to me, Cloud. It is a pity that he need to die. I wish that he could also be resurrected."

"But here we are...", Aerith continued, tilting her head facing sky, "Feeling is a such strange thing. Somehow Tifa liked you but you are so casual to her - just like your guy friends. She faithfully accompanied you to the tournament, also risking her life. But you chased me - a dead girl who is not even human - even to another world..."

"That is actually what I want to clarify...", Cloud interrupted and his hands caressed both of Aerith's shoulders, "I want both of us to ride the Fairy Wheel on the Gold Saucer, just like we did in the past - to talk about this. We can do this after lunch with our comrades..."

"Both of us only?" Aerith asked, a bit surprised, "Does Tifa know about this?"

Cloud bowed down and shook his head. Aerith gently grabbed his arms and intently watched his eyes - sensing that he will say something important.

"Whatever decision you will make, please think about it carefully Cloud..." Aerith said, "Please do not worry about me. It is enough for me to live again. Tifa has been together with you longer than me."

* * *

And so, both Tifa and Aerith have been briefed to go to Gold Saucer the next day. Tifa has asked her acquaintance, Charlene, who is living in nearby neighbor to temporarily care for Denzel and other children. The traveling time by express train from Midgar to Gold Saucer will roughly take two hours. Initially, Aerith thought that five of them (including Barrett and Marlene) will go there together.

However, when she woke up at 6am, she checked both Tifa's and Cloud's house and found out that both of them are not inside. She confused and returned to her room, grabbed her cell phone on the desk nearby her bed. She opened it and tried to send text message to Cloud.

Aerith: [Hi, Cloud. I thought we are supposed to leave together from Sector 10 station? Where are you now?]

Cloud: [Sorry for not notifying you earlier. I and Tifa went off earlier for our private date]

Aerith was shocked. So, apparently Cloud has arranged to date BOTH of them at the same place and the same day. She wondered awhile what does this mean. Does he want to confess to Tifa or to her about his love? But if only such thing, it can be done easily during their last meeting.

Aerith: [I see...I wish you two have some fun ^_^. Would you want Barrett to know about this?]

Cloud: [Please don't! Just say that both of us need to go earlier for settling administrative stuffs]

Aerith: [OK. But our date in Fairy Wheel proceed as agreed before?]

Silent for awhile, before the text message finally come..

Cloud: [Yes...definitely]

Aerith sighed and threw her cell phone away, laying down to the bed and wrapped her face under her palms. Although she said it yesterday in front of him that she is okay if Cloud decided to engage with Tifa, there is still a pang of sadness on her heart when she imagined it. She secretly also want to be together with Cloud. Whatever it is, it is left to Cloud to decide their fate.

* * *

Cloud and Tifa has arrived at the entrance of Jurassic Park Rapid Adventure attraction. The time is 8:57am and no one was seen near the attraction except several staffs who are sweeping the floor, activating machines and preparing to open the main door to the park. This attraction is basically a water sports in which a boat rode by two people will pass through a water ways through the jungle. The participants are supposed to row the boat to reach a cave at the end of the water ways and then need to get off from the boat, find a way through the exit by bypassing either mock Tyrannosaur or Triceratops to reach safe survivor camp.

Cloud is wearing grey short sleeve shirt with Dissidia NT logo in the front and the picture of him with other six team leaders from Materia's side at the back (the souvenir shirt sold during closing ceremony in FF XIII universe), black jeans and his army boots. Tifa is wearing cowboy hat, carrying backpack with clothes for change, brown vest on the top of her white sports tank top, short leather orange skirts with black waist bag, and sport shoes.

"I must admit your choice of dating is not very romantic...", Tifa grinned and teased her childhood friend, "Any particular reason why you choose this attraction?"

"You always like outdoor activities...", Cloud reasoned while scratching his hair, "You always brought Marlene and Denzel for sports...I never watched you playing arcade games or watching movies..."

"But this is a d.a.t.e...", Tifa leaned her face towards Cloud, looked amused, "It is a bit quirky to need to bypass dinosaur for the date, don't you think so?"

"The choice of place is less important compared to the thing I want to say to you...", replied Cloud.

He smiled and walked away from her as the entrance door has been opened. Tifa frowned but shortly followed Cloud inside. After purchasing the ticket, both of them went to the storage room and obtained a pair of water vest and paddle for their boat from Gold Saucer staff. Tifa also put her backpack with extra clothes inside the available locker at the storage room and kept the key inside pocket in her vest. From the storage room, they followed the staff downstairs until they reached dock surrounded by thick plantation with several small yellow kayaks tied down to the bollards. The waterway is flowing through rocky stream penetrating the jungle several meters in front of them.

They selected one of the empty kayak and soon one of the staff untied the kayak from the dock and they started to paddle to move the boat. Tifa sat at the back row and Cloud sat at the front row of the boat.

"So what is this all about?", asked Tifa curiously.

Cloud went silent for awhile while continued paddling. He then turned his head sideway, smiling towards her.

"All hectic battles have been finished, there are no more Sephiroth and I want to start my new life - our new life - together with you...as my spouse, Tifa", Cloud gazed upon Tifa's eyes who looked so shocked by his confession. She saw Cloud's eyes intently and her mouth is opened. Her stoic childhood friend, after all these three years without any clear progress in their relation as Cloud's heart is clearly still fixated on Aerith. She noticed him more than one time he went to Aerith's church or even Forgotten City of the Ancients and did not notify her about that.

"Do...you really...love me, Cloud?" Tifa asked with tearful eyes and she stopped paddling the boat.

Cloud sighed and turned his head back to the front, "Ï always feel comfortable around you, we shared most of our life together. You assist me during battle along our adventure and also on the tournament. It is just natural both of us continue to be as spouse..."

"But it is not just me...our compatriots also shared the same thing with you...that is what the friends do, helping each others. So what make me different from them?", Tifa replied Cloud, "We have been always friend, Cloud...since we were children..."

Their boat passed through the stream and they entered further into the jungle. At both side of river bank, different kinds of mock dinosaurs growled and their heads are watching their boat. There are Velociraptor, Parasaurolophus, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus and Compsognathus. But all of them just passed by and not attacking.

"You are obviously different...", answered Cloud, "And you should know that as well...I made my promise to protect you..."

"What about Aerith?" Tifa challenged, "You care about her too, Cloud...And she also showed same affection towards you. I knew and heard both of you in the garden before the tournament..."

Cloud stunned and cannot answer her. Tifa heard that both Cloud and Aerith confessed of missing each others and hugging each others in the garden outside Materia's palace.

Tifa took a deep breath and continued, "Cloud...I do not want you take me as your spouse just because you feel guilty. It is OK for me if you two are engaged with each others. She is my friend too, and I am also happy if you think it is the best...I am happy enough to be...your best friend...". She wiped her tear from her left eye and continue paddling but shortly realized that they have reached the end of the stream. Cloud jumped out of their boat and grabbed Tifa's hand to help her standing. He held her waist on his left hand and her neck on his right hand, gazed upon both of her eyes compassionately.

"Tifa...", Cloud whispered slowly, "I love you...and Aerith equally...I wish both of you to be my spouse..."

"WHAT?" Tifa saw Cloud's face like she just saw a ghost.

But before both of them have a chance to continue, a roaring sound and shaking ground made them to see at the distance, a mechanical Tyrannosaur is heading towards them. Cloud spotted a jeep nearby the river bank (seems provided by the Gold Saucer staff) and both of them quickly jumped into it, turned on the engine, and drove to escape the T-Rex.

Tifa took driver seat and followed the small path their jeep is currently on while Cloud is loading on mock shotgun given given on the back seat, he is trying to aim at the red blinking spot on the T-Rex lower jaw. The player is supposed to shoot on the blinking spot before the mock dinosaur reach their vehicle and they will lose if the T-Rex hit their jeep. So, Cloud kept shooting for awhile and they successfully avoided the T-Rex when their jeep passed through a tunnel which will bring them to other side of the hill.

At the end of the tunnel, there is a big billboard on the top saying "THE END!". But before reaching the finish line, Tifa stopped the jeep.

Both of them got out from the vehicle and standing facing each other. Their eyes are gazing on each other seriously.

"Cloud...", Tifa mumbled, "Do you seriously mean what you say just now?"

Cloud silently nodded his head, "I have been thinking this for awhile...Both of you have helped me equally in the past. And I am attracted to you and her at the same time...I knew you may be thinking that I treated you and her a bit differently...But that is because both of you have a different personality. I like you because of your practicality and your strength encouraged me to overcome my despair. However, I also like Aerith for her outgoing character, maturity and gentleness...I cannot neglect either of you..."

Cloud stepped forward and grasped Tifa's both hands with his palms, "And as far as I can see, both of you are quite compatible with each others too..."

Tifa went silent for awhile before nodding her head, "I do not have anything against Aerith...I knew her as much as you do...She has been very helpful with caring of children..." replied Tifa.

He searched something from his right pocket and then he retrieved a small jewel box, holding it with both of his hands and opened it in front of his childhood friend.

Inside the box is the gold ring with blue sapphire attached to it. Cloud is intently gazing upon Tifa's eyes - which seems about to cry.

"I present this ring as symbol of my devotion. My dear Tifa...my first love...", Cloud knelt down in front of Tifa, still holding the box, "Would you want to be my spouse..."

Tifa put her palm into her mouth, her body is shaking and tears are flowing from her eyes. She has been waiting this moment from her childhood friend as far as ten years. Both of them had known each others since Tifa was 15 and now she is almost 25.

"Cloud...", Tifa took the blue sapphire ring from the box, wearing the ring before hugged and kissed his childhood friend, "You are my hero and will always be..."

* * *

Cloud has confirmed his relationship with Tifa officially with his confession and not long afterward, their compatriots come and mingled around - Aerith, Barrett, Marlene, Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, Red XIII and Cat Sith. During lunch time in steak restaurant, they mostly talked about experience encountered during Dissidia tournament. Cloud talked about his last battle against Sephiroth during twelveth round of tournament in Rabanastre under Noctis as his team leader whereas Tifa and Aerith mentioned their story against same person in Alexandria with Lightning.

Soon after they finished the lunch, they split up into four groups trying different attractions whereby first group are Tifa, Barrett and Marlene, second group are Red XIII and Cat Sith, third group are Cid, Vincent and Yuffie. Meanwhile, Cloud and Aerith quietly retreated to gondola - the same place where they dated five years ago in the event of FF VII game. While both of them are waiting for gondola to arrive, they feel really nervous and cannot look at each others - unlike last time.

Aerith is wearing short sleeve loose pink blouse, with red scarf with rose embroidery around her neck and white fabric trousers and high heels with light blue color. She is also wearing a pendant with silver Summon Stone with symbol of Odin engraved on its front side - the reward she got from his second best team performance with Lightning.

"Cloud...how was your date with Tifa?", Aerith opened their conversation while gazing upon his mako blue eyes.

"It was good...she accepted my proposal..", Cloud replied with happy smile. Aerith's eyes were widening in amusement.

"So...you two are officially a couple?", Aerith asked for reconfirmation, while trying to restraint intense discomfort from her heart. After that, the gondola carriage arrived at the platform in front of them. Cloud and Aerith handed over the ticket to the guard and the carriage soon departed. Both of them sat at opposite sides so their eyes are faced with each others.

"Aerith...", Cloud leaned his face forward and stretched his hands to grab her fingers, "Do you still love Zack?"

Aerith was surprised Cloud asked that question but she tried to gain her composure and answered, "I am still caring a lot about him..." she replied, "But you knew the story, Cloud...I was as close to him like to you now...but he went to Nibelheim and never returned. After everything..."

Aerith become silent for awhile and suddenly Cloud noticed her body is trembling and she began to cry.

"I met his spirit in Lifestream after Sephiroth killed me in the City of the Ancient", she explained while wiping her tears with her fingers, "I am so glad that we were reunited. He helped to lend me his energy when the meteor was about to crush the planet. He also knew that both of us...me...attracted to you. And, he also knew that you joined the tournament because you want to bring me back..."

Aerith tilted her head up and gazed upon Cloud's eyes, "You and Zack are very similar to each others, Cloud. Honestly, I cannot neglect either of you if I have to choose. But Zack has told me before I was resurrected that it is OK for me to continue living with you if both of us desire so...Because obviously he is now not here...only you are..."

"But you already have Tifa...I cannot force you to be with me. It is unfair for her...", Aerith sighed and leaned her back against the wall behind as Cloud released his grip from Aerith's hands, "It is OK, Cloud...I will still be friends to both of you..."

Cloud saw Aerith's eyes intently, "Both of you are also very close to each others."

Aerith nodded, "She has been taking care of my mom for these five years...Tifa brought her for regular health check-up every three months. Helping her with shopping and house cleaning for regular basis. She let her mingled around with the kids. I cannot expect more than that..."

Cloud smiled faintly towards her, slowly stood up and sat beside her and hugged her right shoulder.

"Aerith...", Cloud whispered to her right ear, "I wish to take Tifa and you...as my spouse..."

Aerith's eyes are widening in surprise. She turned her head rightward to see Cloud and his face is looked really serious.

"You mean...you want to practice polygamy?", asked Aerith for confirmation, "Are you sure this is ok? Is it even acceptable in the Midgar..."

"I do not care about society's acceptance!" Cloud interrupted, "We do not need to register to the state for our relation. I only care about Tifa and you...I cannot choose only one of you and neglect the others. It is unfair to both of you". Cloud caressed Aerith's cheek with her index finger, "I have spoken to Tifa this morning and she is also OK about this...how about you?"

Aerith put both of her hands on her lap, closed her eyes and went silent for a moment. And then she gazed back to Cloud's mako eyes.

"Are you sure you love both of us equally, Cloud?" Aerith questioned slowly, this time her expression is more serious than before, "She is your first love...while I am not even human..."

"You are my last love, Aerith...", Cloud interrupted, "You are the one who has rescued me and planet. I do not care about your heredity. And I still want to be your bodyguard..."

Cloud retrieved the jewel box from his right pocket and opened it in front of Aerith. The gold ring with red ruby gemstone attached on it.

"I presented this to you as the symbol of my heart to you.", Cloud stretched his hand to let Aerith hold the box, "Aerith, my last love - let me be your spouse..."

Aerith thought deeply for awhile watching over the box she held with both of her hands. She prayed in her heart while closing her eyes. After awhile, she slowly opening her eyes, smiling towards Cloud and put the red ruby ring into her right hand's ring finger.

"Cloud...you are so greedy, you took both of us as your wives...", Aerith giggled, teasing her lover.

He did not respond anything to what Aerith said as he quickly hug her into his embrace and he cried in joy. Not long afterward, the gondola carriage stopped, door opened and all of Cloud's compatriots, excluding Tifa, watched them from outside.

"Congratulations, uncle Cloud!" Marlene proclaimed with wide smile, "Taking care of sis Aerith well, would you?"

"How do you all know that we are here?" Cloud interrogated, watching them one by one.

"Because you are so easy to predict, Cloud", teased Yuffie, "The same place with the same girl at the same time..."

"And also, we will soon have a puppet show on 5pm...", Cid continued, "Only two of you still missing...both of you did not reply my message..."

Cloud searched for his cell phone from his left pocket and he saw ten new messages and three unanswered calls. He deliberately set his phone to silent mode and he does not realize the time.

"How can I leave before you are with me?" spoke a female voice from behind the crowd, behind Vincent. Cloud tried to see the person and Vincent quickly stepped to his left side. It was Tifa. Both she and Cloud stared at each other. She stepped forward approaching them and one by one, Cloud's compatriots moved aside to let both of them faced each other. She turned her head aside to see Aerith and the red ruby ring she is wearing.

"You have prepared this so well, Cloud...", Tifa smiled and kissed his lips, "I hope to get the romantic side for next date..."

Cloud hug both Aerith on his left shoulder and Tifa on his right shoulder, taking turn to see them, "You two...", Cloud said, "My everlasting twin love..."


	14. Epilogue III - From Queen To Your Canary

"He saved the world, Konstantin!", shouted Princess Garnet frustrated.

"And I have told you at least three times, Your Highness….", the elderly men in his sixty, wearing red suit, standing opposite of the round table from Princess sighed – His name is Konstantin, one of nine member of council of Alexandria, he was born of noble family, "His heroic act has been commemorated in the Alexandria. But fighter with no previous education is not suitable to rule large city. Additionally, his previous background as a part of thieves for twelve years will not be helpful in establishing our relationship with our trading partner…"

"So, he was rejected just because he was a thief? Now, he is not thief anymore!"

"This is not _just because_….twelve years are such a long time", another council member raised his voice, a blond man with a long beard – wearing the white robe like ancient Greek philosopher. He is Demetrius, a lead scholar of the Alexandria university, "Throughout the history of Alexandria, there was never a thief become a king. According to our own constitution, he cannot be the king. His heroic act does not excuse for past crimes."

"And you have been doing your job quite well until now, Your Highness", continued Konstantin, "On the interest of citizen of Alexandria, we cannot pass the leadership to our city to him…."

Princess Garnet slammed table with her palms, "You just do not get it!"

She turned and headed towards entrance and left council of Alexandria. Steiner and Beatrix, who are accompanying her, followed her afterward.

* * *

It was seventh meeting between Princess Garnet and council of Alexandria. Garnet wanted Zidane to be officially enthroned as King of Alexandria after his appearance at _I Want To Be Your Canary_ show - he has been missing for almost one year in Ilfa Tree. However, this is not as simple as it looked. The monarch in Alexandria is still bounded by constitution enacted by founder king of the city, specifying obligations of king, judge, council, military leaders and ordinary citizens. Unless the king or queen passed away, there is rarely a case whereby the ruler can pass his or her throne to another person. Even in the case of marriage between kingdoms, the constitution does not allow the sovereignty to be passed to another king. In order for such thing to happen, the current ruler need to obtain approval from council, military leaders and referendum by Alexandria citizens.

Zidane is widely popular among Alexandria citizens and Garnet is sure he will have no problem getting majority votes. Of course, military leaders are Steiner and Beatrix. They always supported him along the way - having known and been together with him for adventure to defeat Kuja. The utmost resistance come from council of Alexandria - almost all of them come from civilian background - such as prominent merchant, head of guild, lead scholar, high priest, senior civil servants, and so on. Since they managed civil affair and they care about the competency of the king and reputation of the kingdom if new king will be selected. Zidane has been going through intensive background checks and various kinds of tests by the council for the past three months and unfortunately the result does not favor him.

The ruler and the council worked together in the administration of public policy across nine municipalities of Alexandria. Each Alexandria municipality is headed by one council member who is chosen democratically every seven years by citizen and property owners of Alexandria. When the ruler need to pass new laws or policies, they will meet and checks if new laws have already aligned with constitution. The meeting will continue until agreement is reached or if otherwise, no new laws will be enacted. Theoretically, since the ruler has military leaders under them, he or she can declare council to be abolished if he or she persists. But last time such case happened, it was immediately followed by civil war and all public services stopped functioning - leading to long economic collapse. And this is definitely not the route Princess Garnet want to follow.

Since Alexandria Castle is belonged to monarch, Zidane is still allowed to stay with Garnet and enjoyed palace facilities. But since he is not king, he cannot help the queen to manage and participate in royal duties such as meeting ambassadors, council, reviewing laws and contracts and so on. Both of them are temporarily content with this arrangement but Princess realized that if they cannot be officially married then their children cannot be royal heir. Additionally, Zidane is currently almost penniless and hence it is impossible for him to be enrolled to Alexandria university to satisfy the eligibility of the king. The Tantalus Troupe is still trying to rebuild their reputation and they will require more capital to renovate and extend their current Prima Vista ship. Additionally, Princess Garnet missed her previous exotic lifestyle with Zidane by traveling around the world, instead of public administration she is doing now.

Hence, their motivation to join Dissidia tournament - Zidane as fighter and Princess Garnet as host committee - is to build Alexandria infrastructures by the money obtained by audience of the tournament after its devastation from last battle. They also want to get capital required to expand Prima Vista and hiring new performers. Eventually, Princess Garnet planned to resign from her duty as queen of Alexandria and becoming Zidane's Tantalus Troupe member as opera performer and treasure hunter around the world - the lifestyle both of them liked and excited about.

* * *

Dissidia tournament has just finished and after closing ceremony, Zidane returned to Alexandria and reunited with Garnet. Time is currently 10pm and both of them are currently at the back courtyard of Alexandria Castle, sitting down, leaning upon Alexander statue behind them and gazing upon twin red and blue moons above them.

"It was very difficult to supervise the battle between Lightning and Sephiroth team...", Princess Garnet sighed to her lover, "They are both so persistent...and willing to cut corners...so many violations happened. The palace is in such chaotic condition. I am so happy that everything is over now..."

"But you have done good job, Dagger!", praised Zidane, poking her back, "You got the best host award!"

"So did you, right?", replied Princess Garnet, "You got best team award with Noctis and Cloud..."

"I was just a bit lucky...", Zidane grinned and scratching his hair, "Noctis and Cloud did most of the hard work while I just provided some distractions...But now..."

"Everything is over...and it is time for our new life...", Zidane wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted his Princess. Garnet cheeks are blushing but she felt happy and wrapped her hands on Zidane's neck as her response.

"Are you ready for new adventure, my dear Princess?", teased the gnome to his lover.

Upon hearing his question, Garnet's expression become gloomy and Zidane frowned upon her, gently put her back on the ground.

"I still feel sad to leave this kingdom to the council...", Garnet spoke, "I wonder if everything will be just alright..."

"You have Rusty and Beatrix to guard them", Zidane tried to ease her worry, "I am sure that they can do good job for Alexandria. And from what I see, council consists of very accomplished Alexandrian citizens. You worry too much, Dagger..."

Princess Garnet smiled - the laid-back attitude and cheerfulness of Zidane regardless of the circumstance is one of his traits that attracted and comforted her.

"Do they know about your plan, Dagger? Your resignation", asked Zidane.

Garnet closed her eyes and nodded, "Yes, and they do not mind about it. Alexandria has already been rebuilt from the ruins and now all public facilities have been functioned properly. Additionally, the relations with surrounding kingdoms have been restored and our last trade agreements with Burmecia and Lindblum have been positive. They agreed to renew the treaty for another seven years. "

Zidane heard her and become a bit confused, "Then, there should be nothing for you to worry about, right?"

Garnet looked at Zidane intently, "Although they said they will not oppose my decision to quit, they still felt sad if it happens. Of course, it is hard for me as well...but..."

"It is better for you to be with me - that is what you are thinking.", Zidane interjected and his words made Princess shy and turned her head around.

"It is your decision, Dagger. I really appreciated that...by doing this you lose a lot of things...", Zidane knelt and bowed down before Garnet, "This time, I will ensure that Your Highness will enjoy my kidnapping forevermore!"

Princess laughed and gently butted Zidane's head, "Only if you stop flirting on ladies...including Lightning and Ashe..."

Zidane surprised and embarrassed upon Garnet's mention on those people. Quickly, Garnet pinched both of his cheeks while looked at him like a mother looks at a child.

"Oh, come on!", Garnet half-scolded Zidane, "Don't you think that as fellow host committee, Ashe will not talk to me about you peeping her! And you were so obvious staring at Lightning's thighs when you deliberately walked behind her during ceremony awards..."

"You have caught me guilty...", Zidane admitted as he slowly stood up and held both of Garnet's hands, "Cannot be helped...but...you knew that my heart still only for my Princess..."

Garnet smiled and soon embraced her gnome lover, "And I will be your canary. Bring me away to set me free..."

* * *

"No...are you sure you want to take him?" asked Ruby skeptically, "He got this cocky attitude when we commented about him just now - and his acts are not impressive enough for antagonist role he applied for...I would say he only qualifies as junior staff..."

"He is still much better than that high school student...and previous four candidates...", Zidane tried to argue, "Based on his previous experiences, he is the most accomplished candidate we can find. We need to be realistic, Ruby. Otherwise, it will take forever to hire..."

"I think she has a point, Zidane...", conceded Blank, "The play he will be assigned to is currently very popular in many districts in Lindblum and Treno...we cannot ruin our first try..."

"And considering we are not thieves anymore...", commented Marcus, "We have no side income if he screwed up...his salary demand is too outrageous I would say..."

Zidane sighed and scratched his head, "Then, maybe both of you need to help me in recruiting process instead of just clubbing around the city...". He glanced to Baku to ask for his advise

"Hey, we tried to advertise our group around the city...", Marcus protested, "Otherwise, how do you get people coming for interview?"

"As far as I know from the interview...", Baku said, "All candidates that come to us did not come because seeing poster we spread across the city but by words of mouth and Ruby's connection from her previous job...Are you guys sure you put the poster on the right place?"

Both Blank and Marcus were taken by surprise and they looked nervous facing the rest of the crew.

"Don't tell me you hang around the city try to find girlfriends...", Ruby challenged, "Like what you say before..."

All six members of Tantalus Theater Troupe (Zidane, Baku, Blank, Cinna, Marcus, and Ruby) are currently gathering in the meeting room inside Prima Vista ship - the same place where Lightning, Tifa and Aerith gathered during their journey to Alexandria Castle in Dissidia tournament. It has been around two weeks since last time Zidane met Princess and currently Tantalus Theater Troupe group is in the process of renovating their Prima Vista ship to accommodate more scenery and equipment on the stage. They are also building five to six new staff rooms inside the ship and recruiting new actors and actresses to expand their crew. All of these are financed by prize money obtained by Zidane by getting Gold as Best Team Performance during Dissidia tournament.

Blank grinned while facing Zidane, "Yes, I am...I met with this girl in the market and she wanted to join us..."

Zidane frowned, "You just met a random girl in the market and let her join? Do she have any acting experience?"

Blank shook his head but still smiling, "Nope, but I am sure you will let her join...she will be here at any moment..."

Immediately after saying that, the loud sound of knocking door heard from outside the room. All people inside the room looked at each others wondering who it is and to see who will open the door. Blank looked intently at Zidane and tilted his head towards the door - inviting him to greet the visitor.

"Do I know this girl?", asked Zidane curiously.

"Oh, definitely...", replied Blank quickly, "In fact, you knew her better than I do..."

Zidane excused himself and went outside meeting room. He climbed the stairs leading to the exit which is connected with the ground. He opened the door and saw the girl with the short blonde hair, wearing purple sweater, short white skirt and high pink stocking. But what caught Zidane's attention is the monkey tail attached to her bum, similar as him.

"I should have known about this.", Zidane smirked as he greeted the girl, "Mikoto..."

After excusing themselves out for lunch, both Zidane and Mikoto headed towards a cafe at the business district in Lindblum - this is his favorite cafe where he met Freya for first time. It has been five years since he last time met his Terran sister. All genomes have been relocated to Black Mage Villages and Mikoto are supposed to lead and educate them so they can be integrated into society in Gaia. Three years ago, when he visited the village, she has moved out from village and only left a letter to Zidane in her bedroom said all genomes have grown up and relocated to various cities. Afterward, she tried to explore the world and visit interesting places in Gaia.

"Do you drink wine?", asked Zidane, "I am about to order a bottle for both of us"

"You can tolerate such a strong drink...I still do not understand human's fascination on alcohol..", replied Mikoto, "I prefer fruit juice". Not long after that, a waitress come and Zidane ordered fish and chips and Mikoto ordered mushroom spaghetti. They were given a bowl of free cracker on the middle of the table and start to converse to each others while waiting for the food. Not long afterward, the drink is served.

"I heard from Blank you just renovated the ship with the money you got from Dissidia tournament", Mikoto continued and faintly smile but with her characteristic plain eye expression. She raised her glass towards Zidane, "Congratulations..."

"Uh, thanks...", Zidane also raised his glass and both of them toasted, "But your expression does not very lively..."

"Excuse myself...", replied Mikoto, "I have not got used to lively Gaia...after living with our Gnome families for most of my life. It is not our costume to show strong facial expression during conversation...But I think you already knew that..."

"Of course...", Zidane smirked. The waiter brought their food to the table afterward, "But I really hope you can adjust and change...It has been five years..."

Mikoto just started eating her spaghetti slowly and did not reply to Zidane's comment.

"So, Mikoto...", Zidane started the conversation, "You disappeared so suddenly and by leaving only a piece of letter for three years. Without any clue where did you go or when you will return...And you are alien without any knowledge on this planet..."

Mikoto frowned, sipped her orange juice and replied, "It is not as if you need to know everything first to explore...I am not an adventurous type like you..."

"So, what did you do all this time?", Zidane asked while eating his fish and chips quite voraciously, "I supposed not just finding chocobo...did you spot any treasures?"

"Well, sorry to make you disappointed...most of the times I spent my time reading in library in Treno, about history of Gaia. And I was particularly interested in theatrical arts - because I found that actually people in Gaia are so diverse compared to our planet...you have so many races, cultures and languages...so I joined their Arts Academy..."

Zidane is about to swallow his food but choked upon hearing Mikoto's words, "WHAT? That's freaking expensive...It costs you three years of average people's wage. How do you find so much money?"

Mikoto shrugged, "I went there for free...they always held the exam and audition in city hall. The top three contestants were awarded with scholarship to their Academy. I was one of those three..."

Zidane was amused, "You just come to this planet three years ago and you have passed the most difficult exam to Gaia's most prestigious Arts Academy...as expected from most intelligent Genome..."

"I heard from your friend, Blank...", Mikoto continued calmly while slurping her spaghetti, "That you desperately want to raise funding from new performance to pay for your wedding with the Princess Garnet...the wedding is scheduled on six months time yet you are nowhere near hiring qualified personnels for your show..."

"Blank...I am gonna smack him after this...", Zidane clenched his fists and gazed to the window behind them from where Prima Vista ship can be seen.

Mikoto laid her back on sofa behind, and crossed her arms, "You can use money to renovate ship but not to build reputation...Your theatrical group is not the same level as any Lindblum or Treno performers...And no good performer want to apply into your group because the quality of the show not there..."

Zidane sighed and wrapped his face with both hands, "Yeah, you are right...And I had been too optimistic when I promised Princess..."

"I can help you with this...you can use my script from my arts academy, I can refer my former classmates to you. They are definitely qualified to become your performers. Provided that you allow me to stay in your ship, I can direct the show"

Zidane frowned and cocked his head, "But why do you suddenly help me with this? It is not as if alumni from Treno Arts Academy need to be hired by amateurish theatrical group like me..."

Mikoto grinned and snapped her fingers, "Because now, I am also the fans of Lord Avon...same with your Princess...And my final project is the sequel of _I Want to be Your Canary..._"

* * *

The time showed 9pm and Princess Garnet is sitting alone on the round table inside meeting room, reading proposals of some potential candidates for next ruler of Alexandria. She just met with the Council one week ago and has stated her intention of resignation as the ruler during the last meeting and according to the constitution, if there are no heir then the ruler, council or military leaders can nominate themselves or propose candidates to be the next ruler.

Princess rewound her precious conversation with Zidane at the backyard of Alexandria Castle two weeks ago.

"Wedding? You cannot be serious...", Garnet's eyes were widened with shock, "I do not even know yet how will I select the next ruler..."

"The moment is very good, Dagger...", Zidane grabbed both of Princess' shoulders and gazed upon her intently, "Six more months will be exactly ten years since we first met when my group performed in front of you while Queen was still there. What better day for us to marry? It also will be on your 26th birthday..."

"So, you tell me that you want to perform that show again...with us as the main characters...", prompted Garnet.

Zidane scratched his head and grinned, "To be precise, my plan is to design the sequel of that show. It has been awhile since the classics have been performed..."

"How do it has a sequel while both lovers passed away at the end of the story?" asked Garnet, looked unconvinced to Zidane.

Zidane lied on the floor and sighed, "I honestly do not know...maybe we can create twisted plot when time is reversed and Cornelia and Marcus have option to alter their fate..."

"Easier to say than to be done...", Garnet folded her hands on her chest, "Ït is a 1000-pages classical story...your group has not really created new classical story before. Only performing existing classics..."

"Yeah, you are right...", Zidane mumbled, but quickly asserted, "However, this is not the first time I will surprise you...I come alive at that day, remember?"

"You are so optimistic...", Garnet smiled, "But this is different type of challenge...Not that it is impossible..."

Zidane quickly grabbed both Princess' hands and replied, "I will arrange this, I promise you..."

Garnet sighed and watching Beatrix who is sitting beside her, "How do I will leave if I am not sure who will be the next ruler..."

"Your Highness, I really think that you worry too much...", Beatrix commented, tried to ease Princess, "Lord Steiner has proposed himself to be a candidate. All candidates from the council are looked very well qualified."

"What worries me most is not the qualification, Beatrix...", Garnet replied, "But virtually there is no candidate who has ability to control Summons. In addition to capability, I need someone that can control Alexander in case of emergency..."

"But the world has been at peace for these ten years after Kuja passed away...", Beatrix tried to persuade, "There is no need to worry about invasion of other kingdoms...we have peace treaty with Lindblum, Treno, and Burmecia..."

Garnet crossed her hands in front of her chest and her eyes watched to the glass window on the right side of her. She raised up and slowly walked to the window and opened it, gazing the night scenery of city of Alexandria below it.

"Maybe you are right...", Princess mumbled, "I am a bit too unrealistic...it may be because I do not know personally these candidates are...and most of them do not have experience in handling crisis. Only professional experiences.."

"It is the duty of Lord Steiner and myself, Your Highness...", assured Beatrix, "You just need to trust us."

"I trust you...", Garnet turned around and watched Beatrix's eyes, "But ideally, I want someone that is capable on civil administration and also handling emergency situation.."

Beatrix grinned and shook her head, "It's like yourself...not many of such people..."

Suddenly, there is a sound of knocking door. Both Princess Garnet and Beatrix raised their eyebrows. Who will come to the castle at such night time? From what she knew, she has no appointment of meeting anyone. Beatrix walked and approached the door and prompted, "Who is there?"

"It's me!", the sound of a girl from behind the door, "Eiko Carol!"

* * *

It has been ten years since the events of FF IX concluded and Eiko Carol has grown as a fine and bright adult woman under the care of Cid and Hilda. Her purple hair has grown long and silky and her iconic horn is still there between her eyebrows. She wore rainbow-motive headband, red embroidered shirt with symbol of Treno Academy on the right chest and short skimpy yellow skirt. Her height now is on par with Garnet. Princess looked surprised and happy to see her, as it has been almost five years since they met last time. They mostly communicated through letter as Garnet has not had much free time to see her.

"Hi Sis Garnet!", Eiko waved both hands when seeing her, both of them hugged each others, "It has been awhile!"

"Hi Eiko...", Garnet replied in amusement as this is first time she saw Eiko as adult, "You looked wonderful..."

Eiko giggled, "You looked beautiful as well, same as last time. Except for that black circle below your eyes...". Garnet instantly embarrassed and her cheeks turned reddish. Last night she has difficulty sleeping as her mind kept rewinding the conversation with Zidane yesterday - classical performance, wedding, her resignation, and also choosing new ruler of Alexandria...

"Uh, yeah...", replied Princess, "I am overwhelmed because the need of preparing for multiple upcoming important things...". Eiko has not known yet about Garnet's plan for resignation nor wedding plan with Zidane. She just heard the story of Dissidia tournament from Lindblum's newspaper about battle between Lightning and Sephiroth team. Eiko gazed on her eyes intently and smiled.

"I am sure it is...", Eiko commented, "You have been perfectionist since I knew you ten years ago...Do you mind telling me about that?"

"Yeah, sure...", answered Garnet, "Beatrix, could you help to put the files on the table back into the shelf at the corner? I will return to my room with Eiko...". Beatrix nodded and both Garnet and Eiko walked through the palace corridor and heading towards Garnet's bedroom.

* * *

Both Garnet and Eiko lied together inside Queen's room, chatting about events they recently went through. Eiko has just told Garnet she just graduated from Treno Academy of Public Policy two months ago. The shirt she is wearing is souvenir she received from the university during graduation ceremony.

"That is so good...it is the best academy in this continent...", Garnet congratulated, "I received your letter about graduation ceremony. Unfortunately, I was occupied by preparing Alexandria for Dissidia tournament..."

"It's OK, sis!", replied Eiko, "Dad and Mom attended and they also received reply from Steiner that explained your situation...". Eiko grabbed Garnet's wrists, "Additionally, he told me that you planned to resign after tournament..."

Garnet sighed. She told Steiner to reply Eiko that she is unavailable because of Dissidia preparation but it seemed he revealed her motivation without her approval.

"Why, sis?", asked Eiko curiously, "You have everything that ordinary people would dream about...you are Queen of Alexandria..."

"Except that I cannot be free to be together with the man I love...", confessed Princess, "And it is a worthy reason for me..."

"Ah, Zidane!", Eiko suddenly become enthusiastic hearing her previous childhood crush and raised her body up, "But why do you need to quit? Just enthrone him as a king!"

Garnet sighed again, "I wish the thing is as simple as that, Eiko...you should know how hard is it, you were raised by my uncle for so long...". Eiko slowly realized that Garnet is right. For her, it is easier because she has been adopted since very young age and he has no tarnished history in her life unlike Zidane.

"We cannot officially marry...and I must admitted that when he brought me to escape palace and started our adventure, to be able to explore the world and mingle with commoners without any burden for our reputation was very liberating...", explained Garnet, "I miss that kind of life again..."

"But being a queen come with its own perk, sis...", Eiko reasoned, "Before that event from what he told me, he did not have stable job or income...I lived in Madain Sari ever since I was born so it is not very pleasant experience to live in wilderness..."

"Yes, about that...", Garnet rolled her body and sit on the edge of her bed, walking towards her desk and the corner and retrieved a photo album from inside the top drawer. She put it on the bed near Eiko and flipped the last page. The picture showed the Dissidia Closing Ceremony where Noctis, Cloud and Zidane received gold medal from Princess Ashe as Best Team Award. Eiko turned delightful upon seeing the picture. What noticed her is three of them hold the award charter stated the cash award of 10 million gils as the first winner.

"Wow! He did won so much money...", Eiko amazed, "Such amount will be sufficient for five years cost of living without working!"

"Yes, to be honest, I am so surprised when he can win...", Garnet grinned and looked amused, "He is not the strongest or fastest among the fighters there...It looked like lady luck smiled on him...". Eiko flipped pages of the album to explore all pictures there eagerly. All pictures were captured by Crystal Orbs - both pictures from Lightning's and Sephiroth's team, their journey from the outskirts of city to the last battle in Alexandria port. The last picture showed Lightning after she executed Sephiroth and laughed while staring at the camera with her face full of blood...Eiko screamed, put her hand to cover her mouth, and instantly closed the photo album.

"I have to put Lightning under disciplinary action...", explained Garnet, "She is on good side...but after intense battle she was enraged and turned sadistic...Otherwise, she may already won the Best Fighter Award...". She returned the album to the desk and continued, "Anyway...now you know that Zidane has resolved the finance issue, for now. So, he knew that...and he proposed to marry me on the day we first met ten years ago..."

"Ah!", Eiko widely smiled while tilting her body approaching Garnet, "You two will marry soon! So, that's the reason you want to resign!"

"I wish it is that simple...until now, there are no qualified candidates that I can spot on to replace me...", after her words, Garnet gazed on Eiko's eyes for long time and suddenly she got an inspiration, "Why don't you replace me as a queen, Eiko?"

"Whaaatttt...me replacing you?", Eiko's eyes were widening and she put both of her hands on her chest, "Why me?"

"You are qualified...", argued Garnet, "You are able to control Alexander, you have just graduated from Treno Academy and you have a history of helping Alexandria during crisis in the past. None of the candidates proposed by the council satisfy such requirements. And I knew you personally for a very long time, so I trust you.."

"But I am not the citizen of Alexandria...", Eiko tried to refute and she become nervous. She never expect a casual visit to her long time friend can become so personal..,"Do I even eligible to become a queen?"

"I can naturalize you in three months time!", persuaded Garnet, "If you are willing, I will send an official letter to uncle Cid and aunt Hilda to request for you to become Queen of Alexandria. I will also inform both Steiner, Beatrix and the council that I nominate you to become a queen. The referendum will be held in two months and after the result is out, you will become a queen"

"This is so sudden...", Eiko replied, "I actually want to be involved in government and Dad expected me to become council member in the future...but I never expect to become queen at this young stage..."

"I can understand this is a very personal decision for you...", Garnet held into both hands of Eiko, "I will not force you if you refuse. But just remember that most people at this castle already knew you for very long time. So, it will be no problem for them if you become their queen..."

Eiko's expression become nervous but she gazed on Garnet's eyes with a hopeful light, "Sis, give me one month to think..."

* * *

Eiko, Regent Cid and Hilda are sitting on the dining table in Lindblum Palace.

"I will be very happy if it happens", answered Cid, "You have been sixteen now, the same age when my niece became the queen"

"But daddy...", Eiko replied hesitantly, "I always thought that you want me to be your successor. It is just very abrupt, we do not have any preparation for this..."

Cid shook his head and Hilda approached Eiko and grabbed her palm, "Garnet has already spoken to me about the desire of resignation since five years ago...even before Dissidia tournament. It is very challenging to convince Council to accept Zidane as their king...", explained Cid, "And if you ask my personal opinion, I would say that he is a laid-back type of personality which does not suit him to be royalty..."

"It has been a joy to raise you, Eiko...watching you grew to be adult like now...", Hilda comforted Eiko, caressing her hair, "But as the parents, it is our responsibility to guide our child to right path...Lindblum will always be a partner to the Alexandria."

"I also agreed that after Garnet, that you are the most proper heir...", continued Cid, "You are considered her half-sister as both of you are from same ancestor..It is not very easy to find qualified and trustworthy candidate to be a ruler of the kingdom. Consider it as an honor, Eiko. "

"We will be your guide if you need any advise...", suggested Hilda, "But I am sure that you are more than capable to handle it, eventually."

"I know you since you were a child...", Cid replied while gazing on Eiko's eyes, "You have a good heart and a will to serve people...so you can sure that you have my blessing..."

Eiko has kept her parent's approval in her heart, contemplate about it, and silently walk away from the dining room to the rooftop. A great struggle exists inside her. Since their adventure with Zidane and others, she is always the youngest members of the team but suddenly now, she was asked to be a queen! Of course, she understood that her summoner inheritance is a very rare thing indeed and not many people in Gaia able to control Alexander. Those that able to, may not want or even trustworthy enough to be a queen. She sighed and gazed into the sky, a canary landed on her shoulder.

"Like a canary...", she spoke to herself, "People wish to be free...I understood you now, sis...". She put the canary on her palm, raising it upward and the bird flied to the sky, "You have been generous to help and adopt me into your team, to commit myself to greater purpose and saved the world...it will be a form of my gratitude..."

* * *

And so it was decided. One month after the conversation with Regent Cid, Eiko applied to become Alexandria citizen. The process did not take much time as Garnet gave her testimony to the immigration authority that Eiko is her family member and hence her application was prioritized. From Council side, they decided to nominate Demetrius and Konstantin as the leading candidate to replace Garnet. Demetrius was chosen because of his contribution as state advisor during Princess Garnet's ten years of tenure for formulating civil law, martial law and foreign policy. Konstantin is from one of the richest family in Alexandria but he donated half of his wealth to state treasury for rebuilding the city after destruction by Bahamut. He owned multiple important enterprises such as construction, pharmacy, and printing press. Steiner also nominated himself, as recommended by Princess, in case that Eiko failed to become the queen.

For several months after their conversation at backyard of Alexandria Castle, Zidane and Garnet only meet each other once a week. Each of them are busy preparing for upcoming big event - Zidane is preparing for the drama performance for sequel of _I Want To Be Your Canary_, directed by Mikoto with her classmates from Treno Academy. Practicing his role as Marcus in the new sequel and also applying for permit to present in their theatre. Princess Garnet is preparing for referendum for new ruler. Voting booths are setup everywhere around the city. Each candidate walked around the city and meet with average citizens, giving public speech on their plan if they are selected as new ruler of Alexandria.

And after four months of preparation and campaign, the referendum commenced. The result are out two weeks later - Eiko Carol officially become a new queen with 64 percents of voter's choice. Demetrius and Konstantin ranked second and third with 22 and 13 percents respectively. Unsurprisingly, Steiner does not have much voters as he does not have any proper credential. Princess Garnet and people in Alexandria Castle rejoiced for the result and the inauguration will be held in City Hall. All of Final Fantasy IX original members (minus Vivi) - Zidane, Steiner, Freya, Amarant and Quina sat on the front row. Garnet walked slowly to the podium from the left side of the room to give farewell speech. She is wearing her original white-sleeved blouse with orange jumpsuit from FF IX game. Her hair is kept long like in the past.

"Citizens of Alexandria, my fellow brothers and sisters," Garnet started her speech, "Today, we marked the new era for our kingdom. The dawn of new era of peace and prosperity. Ten years has passed since we rebuilt from the war. It is an honor for me to be trusted as your ruler, despite of my young age. By the grace of the almighty and the hardworking efforts of all citizens, our city has been restored to its former glory. The peace reigned on the city and county. Our local industries have grown and harvest are abundant. Throughout these years, we have built the trust to our neighbor kingdoms and restore our trade pacts. Our city has also gained prominence from Dissidia tournament and attracted a lot of tourists. With your continuous cooperation and vigilance, I am convinced that this era will last in very long time..."

Garnet stopped speaking, closed her eyes, and bowing her head for a long pause. Suddenly, she began to cry and tears overflew from her eyes, "I have accomplished my duty as your ruler...I am thankful for all people who helped and counseled me in my daily work. It is so hard for me to make this decision...", she stopped again, pull her handkerchief and wiped her tears, "I was adopted into this kingdom by my mother. I used to resent the obligation on my shoulder. However, throughout my experience I learned to put the interest of the people above my own...As they supported me along the way...I am grateful to Steiner and Beatrix to always accompany and protect me alongside occasions. For the Council to help in public administration of Alexandria. And Eiko, for her willingness to accept this honor. My eternal gratitude to all of you..."

"From this time, I, Garnet til Alexandros, resigned as the Queen of Alexandria", declared Garnet and all audiences on the hall are amazed, went silence for a moment, and the huge sound of applause vibrated throughout thee hall. Garnet stepped down from the podium, accompanied by Steiner and Beatrix to the middle of the stage. Beatrix is bringing with her the silver plate where the crown of the Queen is put there. Steiner is also holding another plate with the gold rod of the ruler. The high priest of Alexandria, Christopher, is also standing there with three of them to perform official ceremony to inaugurate Eiko as Queen.

"And I shall make Eiko Carol, my beloved sister, as the new queen!", Garnet continued and her right hand pointed to the opposite end of the hall. And behold, a purple-haired lady wearing Garnet's robe of royalty, accompanied by both of her servants on each side, walking slowly to the podium. Her facial impression is looked nervous but excited at the same time. She gazed upon Princess Garnet that is standing on the stage, and then to audience sitting on the front row, especially Zidane, Regent Cid and Hilda, and to the people sitting on the balcony around the hall. Eiko felt overwhelmed by the atmosphere. And when she climbed the stairs to the podium, she was tripped and fell down. Zidane instantly laughed and so do many people among audiences. Eiko raised in embarrassment, with the reddish cheeks, bowing to Princess Garnet, "I am sorry, Your Highness...". Garnet frowned, "What are you talking about, Eiko?", she immediately grabbed the crown on the plate held by Beatrix and put into Eiko's head, "Citizens of Alexandria, here is your new queen!"

* * *

"Freedom, at last!", sighed Garnet while raised her fists to the sky. The new Prima Vista has just departed from Alexandria to Treno. One month after inauguration ceremony of Eiko, Garnet moved from her castle to newly built room with Zidane and she only picked up all her stuffs that were obtained during their adventure ten years ago. They are practising to perform the sequel of the classic directed by Mikoto. Garnet replaced Cornelia, previously played by Ruby and of course Zidane will play Marcus.


End file.
